I met a man who had four wives and was shocked until I met a man with six wives!

Man on left with four wives and on the right the man with six girlfriends


As I was leaving to go to the Umsebenzi I noted my inviteed had not yet left so I joined them to talk as I did not want to go out myself. This happened to be absolutely fascinating. These guys are all connected locally through family or village ties. As I am want to do I asked questions about family and children. One guy has four common law wives as he explained. I explored this in some detail to learn his father had three wives, was a traditional healer and his mother had never gone to school and his father to about third grade. They lived at Hambrook, one of the villages in what is called 11 Settlement area. People there and in other villages were offered land in exchange for moving from their traditional villages. When asked how he supported four wives he retorted quick as a flash, without so much as blinking that they all worked to support themselves and the five children he has fathered. They all lived separately and as I jokingly asked how he managed to maintain relationships he in all seriousness told me how difficult it was initially. The first wife knows nothing of the second wife until he has paid the lobola and is officially paid. The new wife is made fully aware of the second, and the third and so on. The other guys were having a joke with him as well but this guy was very serious and talked about Zulu culture and family tradition and that this is still common amongst Zulus. After about an hour or so I followed these guys out. Luckily I did not plan to leave at midday as they suggested as the starting time (This is Africa) and so at about 3pm we went out.

I took a guy out who was the only non police officer amongst this group of six men. He was a school teacher (Maths, IT and English) and the discussion with him was more fascinating then the previous one. He told me he had six children to six different “girlfriends” who he admitted he still had relations with. Some not very often as they have moved to different part s of SA and so contact is infrequent. However he still maintains contact and sees his children and tries to provide support for them on his teacher’s salary. He also admitted that the relationships were sometimes strained as they all know of each other and there is some jealousy. After telling me all this he told me he did not accept the comments made by the previous guy about this being a cultural issue. He is aware of the HIV message as the National Teacher’s Union is running education sessions to combat the high death rate amongst teachers due to HIV/AIDS. He reflected that what he has done is not right and when I asked him when he had come to this conclusion it seems it has been a gradual matter of reconciling old practices with modern ways and he sees that HIV needs to be addressed and culture is no excuse for the practice of multiple sex partners. Whilst he is aware of condom use, once people are considered “married” as he is there is almost a prohibition on condom use! He acknowledged however he or any of his partners could cause the other six to become infected as there is an understanding among the women that they also may have other sexual partners. When I had asked this guy on the deck if he was married, one of his mates stated “he would not know where to start!” Our discussion explained this comment. He believes that the HIV message needs to get out to save young people from possible infection. He told me he had been tested last year and was negative but he needs to be tested again! This conversation was extraordinary and goes a long way to explaining the complexity of overcoming the HIV problem which is huge in SA with an infection rate of 18%.