‘Men who agree to polyandry are weak’, says polygamist Musa Mseleku

Critics of polygamist Musa Mseleku may deem his comments against polyandry as hypocrisy at its finest.

An old interview with the TshisaLIVE podcast has got people talking once again, after the businessman explained why he is against polyandry.

In late April, the department of home affairs took the decision to relook the policies that govern marriages in South Africa. The traditional view of marriage is that it “is a union exclusively between a man and a woman.”

This is the viewpoint of traditional leaders in SA, who also do not recognise same-sex marriages as governed by the Civil Union Act 17 of 2006.

Polyandry is a type of polygamy that allows women to marry more than one husband. Mseleku has four wives and 10 children that appear on the popular Mzansi Magic reality show uThando Nesthembu.

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Mseleku said the proposed legislation to allow women to marry more than one man is an “attack” on marriage as a whole.

He reiterated that polygamy is based on building families, “we have to build a nation, where we have people that are going to grow out of that being raised by proper functional families.” Mseleku elaborated that building nations is from a certain clan and bloodline, adding that polyandry won’t be able to achieve this, as it could complicate the arrangement and affect the women negatively.

He argues polyandry is going to create “fragmented families” with no direction, as each husband’s child will have to have a surname of that particular husband.

Mseleku says spiritually and culturally the last name can not come from the wife.

“Because her seed carrier of that child is the husband.” He also if the woman is pregnant and decides to continue sleeping with her other husbands this could affect the unborn child spiritually.

“This child may find himself or herself torn apart spiritually by this kind of set-up which looks good to those advocating it. “

“Only men who are weak are going to agree to this set up (polyandry). Men strong enough will never agree,” he says.

He hit back at his critics, saying they don’t understand the practice of polygamy and that polyandry is “un-African”.

Mseleku said in May that the polyandry proposal was “out of the ordinary” and is a misguided attempt by activists to equalise men and women. He explained the lifestyle of polygamists isn’t that of “animal farm” but it is based on traditional customs and values.

“Polygamy doesn’t just exist because a man has a desire of [having] many wives.”

Concluding that in polygamy the man respects his wives because it is not an easy thing to do and men who have good intentions are not trying to legalise cheating.

Compiled by Sandisiwe Mbhele