Why marrying a married man? a qualitative exploration of women's perception of polygyny

Abstract

Motivations of polygynous marriages are far from been settled, while some scholars believe in the age-long marital arrangement, others claim that it is a form of slavery and oppressive to women folks. This paper examined the pragmatic reasons and provides answer to “Why Yoruba women marry married men?” despite the fore arguments that polygyny fundamentally enslaves women. This study primarily dwell on findings from a qualitative research design with particular emphasis on narratives of married women in typical Yoruba settings of Southwestern, Nigeria. Both focus group discussions and in-depth interviews were conducted among Yoruba women in polygynous marriages specifically those in second, third or more position. To cater for the multi-cultural diversity and other biasness, only Yoruba women from Ile-Ife and Modakeke towns of Osun State, Southwestern Nigeria were purposively selected for the study. The findings reveal the reasons polygyny is likely to outlive its criticisms in traditional and contemporary societies of Yorubaland. These reasons which include economic security, religion injunction, deception, cultural and traditional beliefs were considered. The study concludes that discussion of polygyny needs to be understood from women’s perceptive in contrast to the previous consensus and explanations about polygyny in extant studies.