When a man brings home a second wife, or if he stands by the bedroom door and says, ‘by the way, I have a five-year-old son with this woman, and I want to come clean. I want to marry her.”
As the wife, you would think the house ought to erupt in flames. But the walls stay up. If he was standing at the kitchen door, the tea still boils. If he is sophisticated and had just driven you home from a dinner date, the water in the shower will still run. But something changes in you, at first quietly, but irreversibly.
As a woman, especially one with a solid career, a good education, a strong religious foundation, and your own money, you freeze. Not because you lack power, but because power doesn’t always protect you from heartbreak. You wonder, quietly and bitterly, ‘what will I do if I cannot stop him from marrying another woman?
And the question isn’t just about him. It’s about the systems that make it possible. You think of the Bible. You think of Sarah and Hagar. Of Leah and Rachel. Of Hannah, tormented by Peninnah. Stories of women who shared one man, and rarely, if ever, found peace in it. Polygamy, while permitted in ancient times, often came with the price of broken homes and divided love.
You remember the New Testament, how Christ spoke of two becoming one flesh, not three. How Paul wrote of a husband loving his wife as Christ loved the church, not wives. You think: Does this mark the end of my marriage? Did my husband just admit to committing adultery? If adultery is a sin, why is polygamy not a sin? So you sit with that tension, because society justifies polygamy.
I am in a polygamous marriage.
Vincent Mboya, a reverend of Christ Pilgrim Restoration Centre in Nairobi, argues that Scripture does not explicitly condemn polygamy.
According to him, if the Church is willing to embrace and support single mothers, many of whom were left behind by men, it should also be willing to support Christian men who choose to take a second wife responsibly and openly.
“The church today even helps single women pray for good husbands. So why does it condemn polygamous men?” he questions.
He says monogamy is unnatural, because “in every society, the women available for marriage are more than the available husbands,” a justification somewhat that a man will one day bring home a second wife.
“It is not that men want many wives. The church has turned a blind eye to nature and decided that every man should have only one woman. The question is, what are you going to do about the women left without husbands? Many churches don’t have an answer. No scripture forbids a woman from being a second wife, or a man from having another wife,” he says.
But I ask him, “in the creation story, didn’t God make one man and one woman?” It wasn’t Adam and two Eves. Eve wasn’t waiting in line behind another woman.
“Yes, He did,” Mr Mboya says, “but life did not stop at creation. After God created man and wife, they began reproducing, and they did not reproduce in a binary setup of Cain and Jane, Abel and Margaret. As the population increased on earth, it just naturally happened that some men had more wives, especially the wealthy men.”
“So, where does somebody get the idea that to be a Christian, you must be monogamous? In fact, unlike Islam, which puts a limit of four wives for every man, the Bible doesn’t put a limit. It is about the willing women and the willing men.”
A couple holding hands.
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However, beyond theology, there is the reality for families. Mr Mboya acknowledges the silent suffering of wives in polygamous setups who are pushed into depression without support.
“Most of us who are both polygamous and Christian are in trouble because we don’t have support. There is no way my wife will go for counselling in church if we have a problem, because there is no preacher who is going to give her an ear. Which pastor is going to say, ‘Here is how you will stay with your co-wife.’”
He gives an example of how one pastor advised a woman who had been a second wife for 23 years and had 10 children to leave because she was married to “somebody’s husband.”
“A polygamous man should be very responsible. As a man, you must ensure, in fear of God, that you love your first wife, ensure she doesn’t lack food or any basic needs because you brought another woman, or even disrespect her, that the two wives live in the same house.”
“You are at the mercy of the pastor. He can tell you to go or not. Where such men are given leadership, you find them in development committees, because they want your money. But you cannot be a deacon or a pastor, not in the current church,” he says.
However, Ernest Wamboye, a preacher at the Gospel at Relationship Center in Nairobi, differs.
“To say there is no verse that forbids polygamy is wrong,” he insists. “The very first prohibition is in Deuteronomy 17:17, where the Bible says the king must not take many wives. It is a direct command. Why does the Lord single out kings? Because they were meant to be moral examples for the rest of Israel. The warning is that polygamy sways the heart away from the Lord,” says Mr Wamboye, whose ministry runs porn addiction recovery programmes, and singlehood seminars.
He acknowledges that many Old Testament figures were polygamous, the likes of Abraham, Jacob, David, Solomon, but says “people often confuse narrative with imperative.”
“Cain killed his brother Abel, that’s a narrative, not a command. When you read about Abraham having more than one wife, you cannot interpret that as God endorsing it. They were clearly going against God’s will in Deuteronomy 17:17. And the proof is in their families which were engulfed in strife, envy, murder, bitterness. Brokenness was always the fruit,” he explains.
The New Testament, Mr Wamboye says reinforces the point. “When Paul lists the qualifications of a church leader, he says the man must be the husband of one wife. It doesn’t say two, not three, just one. That ideal goes back even further to Genesis, where God created one man and one woman in His perfect plan for marriage.”
You'll be stumbling and staggering across all terrains, but the most important thing is to stay together.
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To him, the problem is not unclear scripture but it is in the human stubbornness. “Even an atheist who reads Deuteronomy will see what it says. The text is not complicated. What is complicated is our hearts, we want to twist God’s word to fit our desires, but the truth remains that polygamy is not His will.”
Still, Mr Wamboye is careful to add that the church is not a closed club. “A polygamous man can attend church. Anyone else is also allowed whether a thief, murderer, even a gay person. However, the values of the church are not open to compromise. Church leadership has standards and one of those standards is very clear, the husband of one wife,” he says.
“God doesn’t use perfect people, but His word is perfect. And His word, from Genesis to Timothy, consistently points to one man, one woman,” he adds.
“It’s not polygamy, it’s promiscuity”
However, Benjamin Zulu, a relationship expert, sees it differently. He doesn’t offer men the comfort of cultural excuses. For him, polygamy is plain betrayal.
“First of all, you cannot call her a second wife if the first one does not allow that kind of arrangement. When a man decides to move away from a monogamous marriage they signed up for, the wife should not stay there. She must leave and go live her life,” he says.
Mr Zulu argues that what is paraded as tradition is a dangerous example of selfishness and self-indulgence.
“If you have any self-respect, you can’t allow yourself to become part of a network that exposes you to all manner of diseases and stress. It is just promiscuity that has been whitewashed and renamed polygamy. In today’s world, there is no polygamy. There is only promiscuity.”
For him, the deceit is not only in the act but in the way it is introduced.
“If you are polygamous, you should say so before you get married so that your partner knows what she is coming into. In today’s world, women have options; they don’t have to be plugged into a network of strife and chaos. When it’s more than one family, there is a lot of chaos, strife, neglect, and tension. No man can fully meet a woman’s emotional needs when they have another woman,” he says.
At what age is the thirst for a second wife most potent, and what factors drive married men to seek additional wives?
“Most men take up second wives in their 40s and 50s, when they are comfortable financially or when they are experiencing midlife regret, also called midlife crisis. When they realise they have lived half of their life, they try to hold on to youth. They go for younger women, trying to recapture their youth, to prove they still have vitality and deny that they’re growing old. They have grey hair and a receding hairline, and they don’t have much going on. It is just regression that has been baptised a crisis,” Mr Zulu says.
But if betrayal has already happened and a second wife has arrived in the union, can the first wife ever heal?
“Yes, they can. Healing is a choice. You can decide to move on with your life, start another chapter, and forget about the past. Any time you lose a marriage you were genuinely invested in or you lose the family you had built, seek therapy. You can heal without help, but it takes longer.”
To Mr Zulu, what some describe as culture is in truth a historic case of the manipulation of women. The damage, the expert says, runs deeper than many men acknowledge.
“Men would underestimate it, but it’s just selfish and short-sighted. Many of us grew up with those kinds of fathers and in polygamous homes, and we were traumatised. There was a lot of strife, witchcraft, chaos, tension, and discord. Sometimes, when you don’t know the right format for family, you can follow what you saw, even when it is dysfunctional.”
The introduction of a second wife is not a cultural act but a form of "promiscuity" that leads to depression and family trauma.
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Pauline Gikang’ah, a marriage counsellor, notes that polygamy is handled differently in different cultures and religions. “In some faiths it is permitted, in some traditions it is part of life, and in others it is completely condemned.”
What matters most, she says, is the foundation a couple sets at the start of their marriage.
“If you entered the union believing it was just the two of you, then the day your husband brings in another wife, it ceases to be polygamy and becomes betrayal. But if you were aware from the beginning that another wife could come in, then there is less impact on you,” she says.
“No man should ambush his wife with another woman. If he intends to marry again, he should have the courage to inform her. Yes, it will still hurt, but being blindsided is worse, because it strips a woman of dignity.”
She warns that even with prior notice, very few wives embrace such a change.
“The reaction is almost always resentment. We have seen cases where anger causes physical fights, even to the extent of the first wife injuring the second one. In some instances, women end up in jail. Others choose to leave altogether, declaring they cannot share a home, while some will stay but quietly sink into depression.”
The counsellor says that in her line of duty, she has seen depression unfold in devastating ways for women.
“Most polygamous men begin by being unfaithful, then eventually they marry a second wife. The first wife often begins by withdrawing from society. If she was once lively, you notice that she no longer wants to be around people. She stops doing the things she enjoyed, even grooming herself. Her hair and nails are neglected. She may resent her own children, not because of who they are, but because they remind her of the man causing her pain. And soon, you notice that a woman who used to take the children to school or shopping now sends the driver or the nanny because she doesn’t want to face the world.”
Ms Gikang’ah advises that therapy should not be the last step, but the first.
“Unfortunately, many women only come for counselling when the damage is already severe, when they are so broken they can barely piece themselves back together. By then, the healing journey is long and heavy. If you notice that communication with your husband has collapsed, if silence, gaslighting, and constant conflict have replaced peace, that is the time to seek help. The earlier you begin, the better,” she says.
Even at the deepest low, Ms Gikang’ah says recovery is still possible, although it leaves permanent scars.
“Many women eventually find strength again, but they will admit that this was never the life they envisioned for themselves or their children. Even those who remarry often say they did not plan it; it was for survival.”
The recovery, she says, is gradual, beginning with the betrayed wife regaining her inner peace.
“We start by identifying what once made them happy. If they were walking, we advise them to take five minutes to walk. If it was a hobby or a routine they abandoned, we encourage them to pick it up slowly. Counselling is not about erasing the scar but about helping them build a new rhythm for their life.”
