By Mairo Muhammad Mudi
I have been having pressure from home on the issue of getting married. I once visited my father and greeted him but he turned his face to the other side and my heart missed a beat! My father hardly talked much less nag. This is his body language to show how angry he was. I don’t take this sign lightly and I started to apologize, promising him that soon I would present someone to marry. I asked him for prayers because I was also desperate to get married as being twenty-four year old was seen as too old to be single! My playmates teased me that between myself and my mom, a stranger might not know the owner of her room. I found this joke very painful but exposing my feelings is a sure way of inviting more hurtful jokes against me. So I ignored it and continued praying for the best.
I told Asma’u how I was thinking of forfeiting my resolve of marrying into polygamy and picking my old boyfriend who came back for reconciliation after abandoning me. I thought I should forgive him because he was doing everything to see that he marries me but I already swore that even if he was the last man standing I won’t marry him, I was just going to marry him because he was my childhood crush, we grew up together and became very close.
I hid my fantasy of wanting to be a second wife just because of him but he messed up and later when he saw that I moved on, he wanted me back! I told him it was not possible but he kept pushing.
Asma’u laughed and told me to please hold on so that I wouldn’t give the poor boy an empty hope. She knew how strong I felt about being a second wife so she stopped me from making a victim out of Idris!
Let me reveal to you how I became obsessed with being a second wife, you may understand me.
As a child, I always suffered while plaiting or loosening my hair, it was so painful then one day someone told my mother to take me to Maman Kande because her hand wasn’t painful no matter how stubborn one’s hair is. My mother took me there and true to the assumption, Maman Kande’s hand was so soft and nice on my hair that I dozed off while she was plaiting my hair, my first time of no wailing. Anytime my hair was due, I rushed to her to loosen it and plait it. Maman Kande’s house became my second home as she was so nice to me that even if she cooked and I wasn’t around she kept my share and later sent it to me. Her daughter usually came to greet her and she would come in with one other nice woman wearing the same clothes, eating and playing together.
Though still in primary school, I was wiser than my age of 10 then and very curious.
I just like Kande and that woman that seemed to be twins, always looking forward to their visit. No matter what I was doing if I heard Kande’s voice in their house, I would rush just to have a look.
My curiosity got the better of me and I asked my mother if that woman was Kande’s sister or friend. My mother told me she is her rival! I then told my mother I want a rival too and also asked my mother why she didn’t have one. She just smiled and told me to tell my father to get one for her.
My father has never married more than one wife, I think that was why I grew up not knowing what polygamy was really all about apart from Kande’s way.
Another reason why I felt marrying a man with a wife is a way out for me was my friend that married the love of her life immediately after our secondary school, they were really in love and never left anyone in doubt that they loved one another but she never had peace because of her in-laws, most of them became her enemies because of the way their son or brother showered love to Jummai. To make it worse for her she was unable to conceive and all the blame was heaped on her.
The enmity was telling on their once fairy tale love that Yusuf turned against Jummai until he kicked her out of his house and life. Jummai and Yusuf’s story scared any love out of my head and made me think that I could have peace marrying someone with a wife and probably children to take off any tension from inlaws and due to lack of child in case I couldn’t conceive.
Did I tell you that Jummai is now happily married to a married man?
And the big one is, naturally I don’t see myself being with a man 24/7 without having any break! I reason we may easily get tired of each other. I hope I am not wrong as I await the coming of my polygamous Mr. Right while praying for my father’s understanding and patience.
Mairo Muhammad Mudi is the author of Diary Of A Northern Single Mother
