Of the Mutare woman who married two men

So there is a story which broke from Dora, Mutare of a woman who married two men.

First the facts of the matter

Mollen Gamira is said to have lived with her husband Washington Bvirindi of Bvirindi Village and her lover, Tafadzwa Manomano of Chitiyo Village for months.

After she had her husband had come from South Africa, Gamira started having the affair. And she would live alternately between the two.

She was quoted by the Manic Post as saying, ” I tricked both men and equally treated them as my husbands.”

Bvirindi found out and kicked her out. She moved out and now lives with Manomano with whom she is expecting a child. Oh. Did we mention that she has three kids with her husband.

The matter is before the court of Acting Chief Zimunya.

Here are our thoughts

What Gamira was practicing was polyandry, a case in which a woman has more than one husband. It is essentially polygyny, but in reverse. Polygyny results in polygamy.

Before Christianity and colonisation it was quite widely found in cultures across Africa. Gabon, the law still allows today, while Kenya does not forbid it. But with the advent of the said religion and stuff, the role of women became more diminished and women were no longer equal.

What that meant is that women were seen as belonging to one man and while the same was done for men, it had loopholes under ‘culture’ [to be read as convenient tradition].

With the concept marriage undergoing multiple changes through hundreds to thousands of years, it is not surprising that humans will find themselves attempting different configurations.

While Gamira’s situation is taboo currently, mostly because of the Judeo-Christian values widely used as standard in Zimbabwe, it is not as odd, deviant or unique from the human condition.

It must also be noted that polyandry can, in a broader sense , also refer to a woman’s sexual relations with multiple males within or without marriage. This is where we have seen the global progression of arrangements such as polyamory (no it is not movement) as publicly interfaced, which tends more towards configurations which may involve same sex partners.

Whatever it is, it is interesting.