If you have ever been to a marriage counselling event for singles, you must have heard that you should marry and stick to one wife if you want to live happily. And I didn’t have to go for a marriage seminar before I heard it again the last time I did.
An older man I was sitting with just began advising me on the need to stick with one wife and that I considered one of the greatest advice I received that day. This partly because I knew how important it is to keep one wife, and partly because I felt the privilege to receive such great advice from a more experienced person like him.
Keeping one wife is one of the attributes of great people. You could non-arguably notice this similarity amongst the few greatest and most successful people in recent times.
And because of this correlation, some people have retorted to the statement that “the fewer the number of wives, the fewer the troubles”. Could that be what Bob Marley tried to sing about? But we should know that was not he meant though.
It is a huge responsibility to maintain your family even when it was constituted by just one woman, not to talk of one comprising of a battalion of children distributed among several wives and concubines.
I may not be married yet but as much as I know, sticking with one woman as your sole lover, wife and mother of everything you call your children have been to more advantages than anything else.
Could there actually be justifiable reasons why people cannot stick to marrying one wife? Even if there were some reasons they have chosen to hold on to, would they be justifiable?
What are the benefits of marrying on wife in monogamy?
Benefits of Marrying Just One
Marrying one wife or husband has its great benefits and I will not hesitate to spell them out this moment;
- Focus
- Having just one property demands that you put all your care on it, but if they are many, you may have to distribute your resources to all of them as appropriately as possible. People with just one partner are more focused on how they allocate and spend their resources with very minimal distractions. And by focusing your time, energy and other resources on your partner in a focused manner, he/she is stirred more towards making sure they focus on the collective issues of the home to overcome them.
- Determination
- Cooperation
- Love
- Efficiency
- Progress
Determination stems from the fact that your focus makes you realise that you are not alone in the victory or the losses. If he makes it, then she makes it too, and vice-versa. There is no one else to disrupt how much they share the benefits or losses. So your partner is better determined to make it work things work just the way it should.
With the collective milestones to achieve together, when there is no other man or woman betwixt both of you, there is more cooperation to achieve your set goals. You are your best complement and therefore bent on working to achieve the many milestones together.
This was supposed to come first but it is here anyway. It takes commitment to stay with one spouse for life because, in the absence of some societal or religious checks, anyone can consider marrying more wives or husbands more appetizing. But on a more microscopic view, you realise that their love just grows fonder for each other when they both realize the sacrifice they have had to make for each other on a daily basis. Having to discover that your partner has chosen you over the many others he/she has considered “sub-standards” to you, who may actually have some few better traits than you do.
Efficiency describes that your efforts are well accounted for with results. The more the dependencies, the less efficient you become.
When there is a collective goal for the greater good, there is bound to progress. Progress is always tied with a unity of purpose and will and these are in turn more often seen in single partner marriages than “poly-partners”.
The list is endless but let it end here for now. Careful observations have noted that women in polygamous settings are less focused on the wellbeing of the entire family than for their own children. Though the father may want all his children to do the best in their lives at almost equal degrees, the polygamous mother would be more favourably disposed towards her own children only. This negates family building principles to self-building.
Thus, even though the mother may succeed, to the father, it is a great loss that his family is only half-built.
When I tried listening to the travails of polygamous fathers, they always warn that their male children do not toe the same path with them. But one question you’d always ask is where they not aware of the consequences before they ventured in?
One father was lamenting bitterly about one of his polygamous sons that is trying out his interests in polygamy even at the expense of his life and education. You know what I mean, don’t you? Does it mean the son did not learn any lessons for himself?
I know I was meant to tell you about the disaster of marrying one wife, I am definitely going to tell you that in a moment. You should understand that I have not changed the topic to the dangers of polygamy. Funny, hm?
In his defence, a polygamous man and father once said he casts the blame to the women. He outrightly expressed in the dissatisfaction in the art of polygamy but he joking blamed the women for making themselves too cheap to always consent.
He noted that when he confronts a woman for serious intimacy, the women are too foolish to reject even when they know there is someone already in his life like he is already married.
And so the chain went, one woman after another up till now with four already? An achievement some would call that anyways.
Some have argued that African polygamy is not bad save that the man has the capacity to take care of the children and their mothers.
Some African religions have even supported polygamy favourably but does that make it good?
Children born into polygamous homes even in the midst of plenty have always reported their ordeals when given the chance. The benefits of marrying a single partner listed above become null and void.
The emotional catastrophe created by an environment of strife and hatred not spoken but avidly expressed from people whom you know to only share a father or husband with you can be deadly frustrating. This is not as if monogamous families do not experience similar occurrences but the challenges are more easily weathered down because of the presence of “the element of determination” in the home.
Now let us go on to the disaster of marrying one wife.
Why Some Men Cannot Stick To One Wife
This is not a question of why men have decided not to stick to one wife but it is a question of why they have not been able to resist the desire to have more than one.
From the very beginning, you may have noticed that I assumed that monogamy should be always more preferred, but in reality, it is not always so.
Desire for assortment
When people decide to keep one partner for life, there seems to be more pressure on them emotionally. Being presented with different shades of what they consider beautiful each day that passes by, makes the whole job kinda more difficult for them.
However, some men have found it much easier by reassuring themselves how much they love their wife and how much they are willing to sacrifice for them, in which case, there are no more disasters, guilts, regrets of choosing to be monogamous or worries that they are at a loss whatsoever.
Deprivation of love and sex
Men who stick to one wife wants their wife to satisfy them as much as possible. The major parameters they use to measure this satisfaction include; how much their wife truly loves them, the sacrifice she does for them and how much she satisfies him on the bed.
When some men do not think they are getting these as they require, they may resort to looking outside for another who may complement the already existing wife. This they erroneously do instead of addressing the issues within the home.
None of these things is sufficient to cause a loss of focus from the wife of your youth to whom you have vowed to love all the days of your life.
Payback for some wrongs
It’s surprising why people think they can punish their partner for a wrong done by giving sex to another person or replacing them. True, it gives a very hurting experience but as far as offences and wrong-doing are concerned, decisions must never be taken too hastily, otherwise, regrets soon fill you to the brim.
Lack of satisfaction
Human wants are insatiable, even their wants for beautiful things. It takes determination and true discipline to stand the test of greed that human nature presents. There are different shades of what we now call beauty but the question of whether you want them all or not depends on your own conviction and determination to be satisfied with the best you already have.
In other words, men who lack satisfaction for the woman they already have are either greedy or lack the extreme discipline required. In any case, there is always a way out and that begins with deliberately telling yourself that you already have the best.
Strict adherence to beliefs in polygamy
In a bid to satisfy their lustful desires, many men especially of the African descent or of some religious faith(not to mention here), have raised their voices for the support of polygamy by those groups in which they belong.
Wrong marriage
This remains one of the commonest reasons why men look outside for another. Wrong marriage choices either due to hasty decisions to get married, or pressure from parents and/or friends, or outright immaturity of the couple and so on, can be a focus for a breakup or possible reason for looking outside. This happens from both sides, in the sense that people generally don’t stay determined if they do not become aware of the terms and conditions before they sign up for anything.
Immaturity, pressure and haste are among the topmost reasons why people do not give their full consent before they enter into marriage.
The Will Remains the Ultimate Strength
Generally, both men and women should reinforce their commitment to each other by showing love and care to each other as much as possible. Men should realise that their wife is the best woman that will ever be in their life.
Husbands must treat their wives with special care and attention. The wives should submit fully without any reservations as much as practically possible. Together, everyone is happy but a deviation from what anyone expects is no sufficient criteria to angrily do something rash or seek for their replacement.
No matter how much of the special treatments a couple receives from each other, the ultimate force of resistance to advances and lures from the outside is their will and commitment to remain with each other and alone with themselves. The will remains the ultimate strength anyone who succeeds could muster.
Could These Electronic Solutions Suffice
The new electronic equipment that tracks a cheating partner or detects doubly married secret partner. These devices that come as bangles and tracking software would be very sparsely effective, less effective than the ultimate power of the will. This is largely because the best they can ever achieve is to create awareness about the appalling activity of the other partner.
Also, most of these pieces of equipment and software are operator-dependent and the user may decide to deactivate them or detach them for the time through which they want to remain hidden in their acts of deceit.
In the end, I will further re-emphasize the power of the will and determination in staying focused on one partner till death do you part. Of course, there are great benefits to this decision, and they greatly overwhelm the risks and challenges.
