Bukavu (DR Congo) (AFP) – “I am able to rating is to obtain in order to seven wives,” told you Congolese chapel pastor Chirhuza Zagabe, a spouse to four spouses and you may dad of sixteen students.
From inside the 2012, the fresh new 60-year-old partnered three female likewise within his church in the eastern Popular Republic out of Congo. He repudiated that having “bad conduct”, the good news is provides four aged between 26 and you may forty-eight through other marriages.
Zagabe’s disease signifies that polygamy lasts about big main African country, in which advocates strongly right back the technique of being married in order to a whole lot more than just someone despite it being officially banned to get more than just three decades.
Doing two % of your own world’s people reside in polygamous domiciles, with respect to the American think-tank, Pew Browse Cardiovascular system.
The brand new habit was really extensive into the sub-Saharan Africa, in which an estimated 11 per cent of your populace live in polygamous homes.
New ratio when you look at the DR Congo is actually a couple percent. Advice are plentiful away from Congolese dudes boasting throughout the having good “2nd workplace” that everybody understands — actually their first mate.
Polygamy is extremely common within the sub-Saharan Africa, where a projected eleven percent of population reside in polygamous properties Guerchom NDEBO AFP
When videos purporting to display men e day try released into the YouTube past times, brand new clips ran widespread toward social media.
It informed the storyline out of an early on Congolese guy which allegedly fell in love with a female that has a couple lookup-alikes that were very persuading he wound up marrying the around three.
Specific statements pitied the brand new alleged groom. “He’s going to endure”, penned you to definitely reviewer. “We will see seen almost everything,” said a special, when you find Puola morsiamenvirasto yourself an admirer remarked: “The newest lad is actually strong.”
A theatre manager throughout the eastern city of Goma found the guy is actually trailing the movie, which he states is actually predicated on a genuine facts and you can put actors to increase the difficulty off polygamy.
Traditional society
Every Sunday, Zagabe teaches you and you may praises brand new deserves from polygamy about Lord’s Primitive Chapel, which had been created in 1983 which can be certainly DR Congo’s many spiritual sects.
A number of dozen away from their head eagerly listen to his preaching when you look at the Bukavu, the main city from Southern Kivu province, that have female on one side of your central section and you can dudes on the other side.
Zagabe’s sermon states humanity’s facts already been which have that male and many women. “Rather than living in adultery and you will debauchery, Jesus authorised guy to own numerous spouses,” the guy advised AFP.
“Polygamy are a human business that happens far-back within conventional African and Congolese society. It is really not good divine place,” said Raymond Kongolo, a good Catholic priest inside the Bukavu.
DR Congo’s composition and friends password features demonstrably mentioned once the 1987 one to polygamy is an offense, considering Joseph Yav, legal counsel and law professor on the southern city of Lubumbashi.
‘Blessed from the God’
One of Zagabe’s congregation try Kalungu Kalebe, who’s got a couple of spouses and 7 students. Instead of transgressing regulations, the newest forty-year-old thinks he could be “blessed by the Goodness”.
Other parishioner Nathanaelle, fifteen, told you she try “ready” to wed men with other wives. “That does not annoy me after all,” she added.
Rakel, certainly one of Zagabe’s spouses, observes the children away from their almost every other spouses due to the fact her very own, along with the three offspring this lady has borne him.
An alternate of Zagabe’s wives, Yaelle, told you she lives in equilibrium with his other spouses. However, she noticed that neighbors exactly who accustomed check out their particular whenever she is the only spouse regarding the household has actually once the prevented upcoming. “They fled from all of us,” Yaelle said.
“So it polygamy organization is a deviation within our society, it’s unthinkable!” said Nicolas Lubala, a great 42-year-dated Catholic which accuses the latest Kinshasa-based Primitive Chapel out of “adding to ethical depravation”.