He is the half part of a blessed man,

Left to be finished by such as she;

And she a pair divided excellence,

Whose fullness of perfection

Lies in him.

— Shakespeare,
King John

Based on what that quote above says, if he is half part of a blessed man, then it follows that a woman would need two men to make the whole. At least that’s the way I see it. And that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

It’s the dream, fantasy, desire, and wish of many men, if not most, if they really and truthfully admit to it, to have more than one woman. Some may do so concurrently, having both at the same time, while others may do so consecutively, one after the other.

But two women it is, and indeed many men do manage to pull off that trick, albeit undercover, as they sneak around, having a wife and a mistress on the side. In some cultures though, there is no need for the cloak and dagger mystery and secrecy, for it’s legal and eliminates the need for all the subterfuge, lies, sneaking around that comes with what happens in the Western civilisations where polygamy is not legal.

Yes, polygamy is the way to go in some cultures, even now as we speak, and the men there have it made, living in hog heaven as the saying goes, having the best of both worlds.

But what happens when it’s the other way around and it’s the woman who has two husbands? Is that even conceivable, practical, logical, does it make sense, and which Jamaican man would tolerate such an absurdity?

All this and more we’ll explore right after these responses to my take on ‘Why dem hate KC suh’.

Hi Tony,

I did not know that KC was so hated. Perhaps one would have to be a past or current alumni to experience the hate thrust upon them like no other school. The word envy comes to mind — a grudging desire or discontent at the sight of another’s excellence.

An Old Wolmerian

Teerob,

I must confess, I really used to dislike the attitude of the KC boys over the years, but I must also confess that beneath that dislike was an admiration of how successful that school was in whatever field they took part in. Even if they didn’t win, it’s as if they won, for they poured everything into whatever they did
— win, lose, or draw. You can love them or hate them, but you can’t take away their spirit.

Arthur

I’ve been watching this South African television series on
TVJ titled
Generations, and I was intrigued by the storyline that had one woman wanting to take a second husband. Dem say dat two pon one is murder, but she didn’t care. She was having an affair with her ex-boyfriend behind her husband’s back, sneaking around, and doing all the sordid things that come with the territory.

Well, they got discovered by her husband, but in a bizarre twist he refused to divorce her, partly because he loved her and didn’t want to lose her and partly because he didn’t want to lose his stake in the family business that he helped to build.

So they agreed to enter into polyandry, whereby a wife can take a second husband and live happily ever after. Her rationale was: if men can do it, then so can women. That’s a TV show, but could that sort of relationship work in real life? They do say that life imitates art, but is this one really practical, feasible, workable, tenable?

“One woman with two husbands…preposterous, ridiculous, absurd…not in my Cabinet,” is what some men say.

What has been known to happen in reality is one wife having a husband and another man on the side
— her undercover lover. In Jamaica he goes by the moniker Joe Grine, but he’s a shadow who lurks in the dark and satisfies her desires when the opportunity arises. Usually that arrangement is untenable and impractical and doesn’t last very long.

The
Bible says that you can’t serve two masters, lest you love one and hate the other. Something’s got to give. Most husbands aren’t comfortable with that situation, the wife gets emotionally discombobulated for she cannot deal with the tug of war, and the outside man often gets impatient, for he wants more of her.

At least some do, but most don’t mind just having the wife as a side dish, with all of the pleasure but none of the pain. But let’s examine what happens if they all agree to this arrangement, how would it work? How would they apportion the time spent with the woman based on the fact that there are seven days in the week? Would she spend four days with one, then three with the other, or every other night? And what about public holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, Valentine’s Day, Christmas and New Year’s?

Could this actually work in Jamaica where men are so extremely possessive of their women that murder is sometimes committed because of infidelity? Is it in the psyche of the Jamaican man to openly share his woman with another man?

“Say what, share my woman with another man…no way Jose.”

“Yu mus be mad, and I get what leff?”

Ironically, some of the men polled had no idea that that they were unknowingly and unwittingly sharing their women with other men, but that’s for me to know and for them to find out.

Remember that Jamaica is the ‘jacket capital’ of the world, with more than 35 per cent of men tested not being the fathers of the children they thought were theirs. Those women were dealing with other men on the side, but I guess what you don’t know won’t hurt you. Or will it?

Some women, when asked, said, “I can’t even service one husband, much less two. I couldn’t manage.” That’s another thing: both husbands would be in competition to see who could sexually satisfy their mutual wife and go overboard in their zeal.

“Him can’t go hard like me, for I’m the real man.”

The other man would say, “When I done wid har, nothing left for him.”

The wife would literally suffer at the physical pounding of the two men. Could she endure that ego-fuelled jackhammer assault by two husbands trying to outdo each other in the bedroom?

What ground rules would there be, would she be allowed to discuss the other man while she’s with one, and would she be obliged to tell one that she had sexual relations with the other the night before, how often, duration? Could she make love to both of them on the same day?

I cannot really see any Jamaican man accepting that his wife just had sex with another man and then crawling into bed with him.

“Come, honey, it’s your turn.”

The irony is that a man who is secretly seeing another man’s wife on the side has no problem with her sleeping with her husband also, but when she becomes his legal wife, he will not suffer that indignity.

Remember what I told you a while back, a woman’s vagina is a man’s most prized possession. Then there is the question of hierarchy. In polygamy, the man has wife number one, wife number two and so on, each one knows her place. But what happens when one wife has two husbands, is there an alpha male and a secondary husband; after all, both can’t be equal? And what if she becomes pregnant, who claims paternity?

You can now see the impracticability of such a situation in Jamaica, where the concept of one woman and two men cohabiting out in the open, living as one unit is just not possible. But it does occur in some jurisdictions.

“Polyandry: Marriage of a woman to two or more men at the same time. The term derives from the Greek polys ‘many’ and aner andres ‘man.’ When the husbands in a polyandrous marriage are brothers, the institution is called adelphic or fraternal polyandry.”

Much has been said about this.

“I’m monogamous from time to time, but I prefer polygamy and polyandry.”
— Carla Bruni

“Polygamy, an endeavour to get more out of life than there is in it.”
— Elbert Hubbard

“Your naked body should only belong to those who fall in love with your naked soul.”
— Charlie Chaplin

One woman, two men, what say you, workable or not?

More time.

seido1yard@gmail.com

Footnote: School violence is rampant, pervasive, in your face, as the saying goes, and getting worse. The most recent occurrences involved that brawl at the transport centre involving more than seven high schools, reputedly due to a love triangle between a high school girl and two high school boys. And then that tragic incident when a 14-year-old boy was stabbed to death by his schoolmate. It’s really sad and frightening what’s happening in our schools, but some of us are not surprised and saw it coming. I and others have expressed over the years the lack of consequences for bad behaviour by students, as punishment is now not on the agenda of the authorities. Teachers’ hands are tied. Combine this with the attitude of parents who give their children free rein and it’s a recipe for disaster. I will say it again, if we continue on this lack of consequence path, worse is to come.