Old Mutual On The Money
Old Mutual On The Money
Polygamist Musa Mseleku on Balancing Family and Finances
Join Mr. Musa Mseleku and Old Mutual’s Head of Financial Education, John Manyike, as they talk about finances and family. From how Mr. Musa Mseleku learnt to handle money, taking care of his growing family, his streams of income, and protecting his loved ones' future. Listen to this candid podcast as he shares tips and interesting financial ups and downs.
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John Manyike 00:05
Good day, Mr. Mseleku
Musa Mseleku 00:07
Good day, how are you?
John Manyike 00:08
Duma, Mthombeni, Lwandle [NOTE: these are clan names].
Musa Mseleku 00:13
You’re saying it as if we are back at the homestead in KwaZulu, maybe you’re going to pay lobola.
John Manyike 00:19
Maybe you’ll be the one to speak on my behalf
John Manyike 00:24
Sir, please tell us about your background. Where do you come from?
Musa Mseleku 00:28
I was born at Umzumbe, a place called kaMadlala, under the Chief Madlala. I was raised by two parents, without a male parent, two women. My grandmother Flo and my mother Joyce are the ones who raised me. I also went to school in eMzumbe, in the rural areas. I started at a school called Dan Fazio, then I went to another school in the area called Sengamzizwe High School… thereafter I completed my matric at Sister Joan's High School. When I finished school, unfortunately… my grandfather… oh, he was still alive at that time. I then went to study for a Bachelor of Social Science at KZN. I thought it was a big deal, but it wasn’t a big deal.
John Manyike 01:28
It wasn’t a big deal.
Musa Mseleku 01:34
I was fortunate that, while I was still studying, I developed a passion for radio. There was a student Radio Station called Durban Youth Radio which I joined as a newsreader - I felt like an important person reading the news. Little did I know that I’d be fortunate enough. While reading the news, the late uKhozi FM, Mr Mtholephi Mthimkhulu , who was the news producer/ presenter at uKhozi, heard me, loved my voice, then called me to join them as an in-service training. That’s how my journey went.
John Manyike 02:10
A lot of people do not know that you’ve worked for the municipality?
Musa Mseleku 02:15
I worked for the municipality for 15 years. I started working for them in 2000, March 15. I was hired... I would say it was an entry level position because I was hired as a Community Service Officer dealing with the community. I think I got my passion for working with people from there, and resolving people’s problems, because when you work for the municipality, it’s only then you realise that somebody brings the water that I’m drinking, somebody who makes it possible for me to have electricity, somebody must make sure that there’s roads. So, I worked there, dealing with different people and projects. My whole life was there. Do you know what I remember, besides problems?
John Manyike 03:14
Yes?
Musa Mseleku 03:15
It’s that I’ve never been absent from work even for one day! For the past 15 years, continuously working.
John Manyike 03:27
It's my understanding that your father only had one wife. Where does the influence of polygamy emanate from?
Musa Mseleku 03:39
My preference for polygamy was never encouraged by anybody. When I was young, at primary school age around 8 or 9 years, I would talk to my grandmother Flo, I would say to her. You know when you ask a child; “What do you want to be when you grow up”? And when I would define my growth, I would say, I’ll be a businessman, I will have cars and I will have wives. She wouldn’t comment when I said I would have businesses, or shops, or cars… she wouldn’t say anything, but when I would say I’m going to have wives, she would say, “What do you know about women”. I spoke about polygamy before I understood what it is, the actual meaning, and the workings around it, the responsibility, I didn’t know what it meant, but I spoke about it.
John Manyike 04:42
You wanted to have 20 kids?
Musa Mseleku 04:44
Yes, I wanted 20 kids.
John Manyike 04:47
So now, you’ve got almost on 50% of the target.
Musa Mseleku 04:51
Under performing.
John Manyike 04:55
Is that the reason you want number 5?
Musa Mseleku 04:51
So, number 5,okay, I originally wanted 7 wives, but life and reality teaches you many things. One: When I married my first wife, MaCele. I had a lot of energy, that affirmed that I could do this thing, but it wasn’t easy.
John Manyike 05:21
When you say energy, what are you referring to?
Musa Mseleku 05:24
I mean that I was young, so I would run around and then I was a little bit exposed to having money, and that I could pay lobola, because I was working for the municipality. The energy to chase, and beg, and negotiate was there, now I no longer have that kind of energy.
John Manyike 05:46
I hear that your children are respected within the community. They are well respected in the community, they are not kids who show off that they have a well-off father. How do you instill discipline in your children? Especially when it comes to issues around money so that they don’t become children that are trying to flash things, Instagram life, things like that.
Musa Mseleku 06:13
Growing up, we didn’t have money at home. My mother and grandmother told me that there was a time when they were unemployed so they had to ask the neighbors to assist. Sometimes they would give food to my sister and I, but they wouldn’t eat because there wasn’t enough. So, my grandmother taught me what being poor is about, and I saw and understood it. She also taught me the difference between having money and not having it. The important thing was staying alive. I took those life lessons and brought them to my children, and told them that, it is not because we are special that we live well, but it is by the grace of God and through our parent's hard work. So, having a car that drops you off at school when others don’t, you are able to sleep having had something to eat, and then wake up in the morning. You also have the ability to choose, and you have things to choose from, we didn’t have that privilege. However, what made us who we are, and we grew from this, was to know people, respect them and treat them well. I also explained to them that the best thing that I can give them is not money, even though money will help them live, but values that I was raised with are what I can impart. Above all else, we were taught to share, if you have something, and your friend at school doesn’t, you enjoy it better when you share. It’s not enjoyable when you don’t share it. Eating it alone makes it seem like it’s no longer enjoyable. That’s what we’ve taught them. That is not all that we’ve taught them but I’m grateful to God because it is very difficult to raise a human being to be what you would like them to become.
John Manyike 08:11
I believe you’re looking for wife number 5.
Musa Mseleku 08:14
Okay.
John Manyike 08:16
But in reality you’ve been married 5 times?
Musa Mseleku 08:20
Oh yes, yes, I have five wives, but my one wife passed away in a car accident in 2008, which means that I'm looking for number 6. People don’t know my deceased wife, so they think I'm looking for wife number five. Yes, I do want the next wife, even though I'm not sure if it's going to happen.
John Manyike 08:46
Her passing, has it brought any reality check, about maybe how to plan for the future, because like you never know, like now, you may be business man, but for your legacy to continue, you need to have some protection or cover for you and your family, even if you not around there is enough provision for your family. How did that play out in your life at that time?
Musa Mseleku 09:24
I learned that a person must learn to duplicate themselves. I always tell people that if Mseleku is a breadwinner, the one who brings food home. He must create something else that will bring in food. In other words, I must duplicate myself in my avenues for income, because if I am the one who is responsible for the livelihood of my family, that means I find something else that will allow my family to continue to live even if I'm not around. We tend to not think about that, and it’s actually important. Meaning, there must always be savings, and alternative ways of making money, so that If anything happens to me at any given time, my family must not suffer financially. So, there has to be another stream of income that I have created for this to happen and more than that, you know death, it’s a very painful thing. It is better to grieve the loss of a loved one, rather than to worry about how I'm going to bury them. It is better to worry about one thing, and be comforted in knowing that you can bury them with dignity. As opposed to saying, “I'm grieving the loss of a loved one, but I don't know how I am going to bury them.” You see that is a double pain, what I have no control over is death, but I have control of the resources I will need to bury my loved one, because, as I work, there’s a little I can contribute towards, to be aware of what you will need to bury your loved ones with dignity.
Musa Mseleku 11:00
It’s everywhere that thing, everyone advises people to save an x amount of money to prepare for unforeseen events in the future but people think you’re saying that they are going to die tomorrow. Which is not the case, it’s the wisdom behind the knowledge which says when my day comes to cross over, I have to be buried with dignity. There mustn’t be issues around. Imagine a man in my position, in a polygamous marriage, because I will have many wives grieving my death, it will be chaotic. Therefore, it is better for me to manage this chaos as part of managing my family, that’s what I’ve learnt. Because when my late wife passed, we had a young son but she was wise enough to plan ahead and leave something for him. Then you hear friends saying will your kids not suffer when this person passes away. No, they are lying, the onus is on the parent to make sure that the kids don’t suffer upon their passing.
John Manyike 11:58
It means insurance matters are a priority in your home considering that this is a big family?
Musa Mseleku 12:04
Insurance - I see and approach it from two perspectives. I have a Funeral Cover so that they can bury me and a Life Cover so that they can live. You know, I want to tell you something that will make you laugh, but it is reality. Do you know that a wealthy man's wife usually suffers financially upon his passing. This happens because men are secretive when it comes to money matters. They don’t expose their wives because they fear that she will engage other men then they will want to sleep with her. How much more once you’ve passed on? Your business partners will be the ones who come and manipulate her into giving them access to the business and your bed. You better plan, your insurance matters, it is very important whichever way you look at it. Sometimes you can be selfish in your thinking. If you love her enough, take an insurance policy out and tell her about it. You see, there’s a fear that she will kill you if she knows what she will get from your insurance policies when you die. No, we were brought together by love, we were not brought together by money. And you must tell her that if you kill me, that will be your fault that you will have to stand for. This is the lane I'm in, and I love you. The lifestyle that I expose her to now, where she has a home, food, and a car, I pray that it doesn’t change when I'm gone. In order for those things not to change, it’s as a result of the initiative I took to take out insurance and policies because if i don’t do things in that manner. No one can save money in the household, without any money coming into the household. At least that money, under the wisdom of the people who work in these insurance companies, they could see that if it was up to you, you would spend all your money at one go. In fact, the person that wrote the song that says “There’s no sleep, as long as there is money in the bank” was on to something. You know money, you know how stupid money is?
John Manyike 14:18
Ya.
Musa Mseleku 14:19
Because it is inconspicuous when it’s in your pocket, it’s best you take it out of your pocket to show people that you have it. And then people will say, “oh, this person has got money” because they are showing off. Whereas if it’s saved in a particular place, it will be safe and they will advise you. So, I’m simply saying with such a large family. People from these insurance companies. They are starting to understand that they must respect our customs. There must be insurance cover for polygamous marriages. It shouldn’t be that when my four wives try to claim after I've passed on that they are told that only one can claim, and the others can’t claim. No, you as the financial adviser must advise me properly to say: “Bab’ Mseleku, you have four wives, and we have a package that suits your specific needs. So, we will divide their pay out equally, to make sure that there are no issues with money, or issues that are going to cause problems in this family that I was building.
John Manyike 15:19
So, you have four wives, ten kids, working on number 5. Do you have a will?
Musa Mseleku 15:30
We do have a will. I set up a will for one reason, you know, I want to tell you; you see this life of polygamy always needs a will. There is nothing that is fought over in this type of set up other than the man. Which means we must also put him in the will; the husband of mam’ so and so, the husband of mam’ so and so, and the husband of mam’ so and so… he is fought over in death. It's about, after death, where will he go? If you haven’t specified that verbally, or you have not put it in your will, it’s a problem. Because people will fight and say, “no, he must go to the last wives homestead” or “he must go to the last wives homestead” so you must put that, then, they will fight over the dead body, I'm not talking about something foreign, I'm talking about something you will experience all the time. When a man in a polygamous situation passes away, if he owns taxis, they fight over one taxi and people are killed over this. So, meaning everything. More than that a man at my level, who has tried to accumulate wealth, has to specify with each car, who gets what, because if he doesn’t specify, those things will be fought over. Because people will respect you while you’re still here on earth, they tolerate you because you are still alive, however when you are no longer here, their approach to you will change. If you haven’t specified that this car will belong to so and so should I pass on, or whether it should be used as a communal vehicle… I’m telling you. A will doesn’t require you to have many assets. It’s important because it helps, in fact It will bring peace into your home, because … It’s better for them to hate you than for them to fight amongst each other. It’s better for them to hate the father of the house because he didn’t distribute the assets correctly, they must hate me, me I was unfair in my distribution. Instead of them fighting among themselves over the distribution of these assets … you see? It’s not just a polygamous man who should do that. Even men in normal marriages as well, because, you know, a wife… I’ll speak about my own wives. A wife comes to your household to build a home. There are your brothers and sisters, and you build for her at your family home. Then your brothers tell your wife that because you are now gone, she needs to leave the homestead. So, if there’s no will, they will be able to kick her out, under the rules of Zulu culture, and tell her that this is the home of our parents, it’s not our brother's home. A will is important for everyone who is married and has children. And the worst part, there are children that are not taught the proper way of doing things, I always say this. There are those children where, when the father passes away, they want to be the head of the house when it comes to decision making. I always talk about this treatment, that we don’t teach our sons and daughters how to treat their mothers, it will be chaos upon your passing. They will enter through that door and exit through the other one, in the presence of your wife, because they have not been taught the proper way for doing things.
John Manyike 18:53
It’s rough when things are like that. Let’s get into the story of your businesses.
Musa Mseleku 18:59
Okay.
John Manyike 19:01
You began your journey long ago. You’ve had salons, driving school, rental properties, food trucks at taxi ranks. Please tell us. You even wrote a book. How did you make your first million, please tell us.
Musa Mseleku 19:22
You see, I’d like us to move away from one assumption, poverty is not about not having money but rather that poverty is about not having the correct state of mind to make money.
John Manyike 19:32
Please can you repeat that for me.
Musa Mseleku 19:34
I want us to move towards the premise that poverty itself is not entirely based on a lack of money. It’s rather that your state of mind cannot find ways to make money and you keep that money. A lot of people make a lot of money, but they are still poor, because money is not assisting them to change their lives. People think that starting a business, you require so much money/capital. No, you don't need that, what you need the most is the idea and the courage to start a business. Those attributes are important, they will give you the motivation to drive the business forward. The spirit that allows you to become the person you want to become. Let me tell you, I have tried those things of trying to start a salon etc, and I failed because I trusted people. Because people need to understand that, sometimes you try then fail. People who came before us usually say it's not important that you failed, what’s important that you got up after the fall. It doesn’t worry us when we have not succeeded, but what worries us is if we have failed forever. What made me money, the one I wrote about in the book titled, “How I made my first million”, was food trucks at the taxi ranks, something that was so simple. There’s a lot of opportunities to make money at the taxi ranks. Taxi ranks, there is so much money and there are some many different ways to make it. The difference between me and the guys at the taxi rank is that I gave the money I made at the taxi rank value. I gave it power, I just gave it value, not because I wasn’t a better businessman than the others, or that I am better than then, no, we are all the same, because we all had the same vision, which was to go and sell. You see, at the taxi rank, when you wash a taxi, let’s start there, the guy who is always wearing overalls that are torn, the one you don’t take notice of. He washes 10 taxis a day, at R70 per taxi, he makes roughly R700 a day, but he doesn’t bank his money, he spends it. That’s the difference, that he doesn’t put the money he makes in the bank.
John Manyike 22:00
He spends it.
Musa Mseleku 22:02
In the afternoon, after work, he is spending it on cigarettes and alcohol… it has no value. In another scenario, there’s a lady that has a table that she sells food from, she doesn’t pay for rent, and she gets her water for free at the rank, she uses a prima stove to cook, she doesn’t pay for electricity, she may sells, tripe, rice, eggs, a lot of things. She makes roughly R1300 per day, this woman who sells, or rather let’s say she makes R1500. This lady also doesn’t bank her money. It’s either she uses it on these gambling things they do to make extra money, which helps a bit, or she uses it for her children, however, she does not give it value. She will never see a better life because, even though she is a real business woman, when you calculate the amount of money she makes a month, it’s close to R24 000 to R30 000. But, when you ask her if the value of her money has increased her credit worth, she will say no, because she was afraid to take that money to an institution that will give that money value. So, I've developed a simple concept. I do it in a hybrid Western and African way … that says, while I'm saving money, I'm also not saving the one I am going to use tomorrow because I used to enjoy watching money grow. You see, when you bank money, then you see it appreciating in value, going up from R1000 to R2000, you have to have that kind of mentality when it comes to money. So, that money that I was going to use to buy stock tomorrow, I wouldn't take to the bank. Which is not what is recommended in the western way of making money, but in the African sense, that is the correct way. Because, the idea of depositing your money and then withdrawing your money doesn’t allow you to actually see how much money you are making. So, I let the money I deposited grow by giving it some time, and I discovered that it was a lot. Can you imagine, I was making R1500 a day from 4 food trucks. You see, which means I'm making around R4500 a day, and then I take R1500 from that money to buy food for all the food trucks for the next day. Which means, at the end of the month I would be making approximately R45 000 to R60 000, and then I would pay the people who were working in the food trucks and pay for other expenses. Money for me was based on my mind set, it had nothing to do with whether I had money or not. And when I saw this money growing every month in my account, I was so encouraged, I realised that there is so much money. I can go out to the taxi rank now and you can ask one of those ladies how much money they make a day, and she will tell you, and you’ll be amazed. Then ask what she does with this money, she will say “I’ve got a lot on my plate, my son”. She was never taught about the power of money. That even with her burdens, give the bank R300 a day and save it. It’s fine to take your R1000 and use it for your needs, but give us R300 and we will save it for you. So, that when you go to the bank tomorrow to apply for credit to buy a car and they ask you where you work, you can show the bank proof of income. Here is the money I have been making, when you go to the bank tomorrow to get a loan to buy building materials to build your house, so you can have a better home… a better life now!
John Manyike 25:30
They will give it to you.
Musa Mseleku 22:31
They will give it to you. I once told someone who wanted to build their home that they should go and deposit their money at the hardware store like they owe them. Trust them with your money and they will trust you with their materials. If let’s say you are short a few rands, say the material was R100 000 and you have only put in R50 000. They will give you the material on credit for the remaining R50 000, because you trusted them first with your money. Insurance works the same way. The insurance man says, if you put R30 or R50, when you have a problem. I’ll give you R10000, because you trusted me with your money Mseleku, I’ll also trust you with mine. It’s the same thing. Regarding business… how I wish I could go back and sell at the taxi ranks, the only problem would be that people will keep coming to take pictures with me.
John Manyike 26:31
Where there’s polygamy, there’s always jealousy right?
Musa Mseleku 26:34
Yes.
John Manyike 26:35
How do you manage it?
Musa Mseleku 26:39
I try, it’s more about management of everything. More than love. I always tell people that you must stop talking about love when it comes to polygamy, because some people will ask, how many hearts do you have in order to love all these people. That’s what people will say. So, it is more management, than love itself. Yes, it’s built in such a way that when you love someone, you bring them into your household, once you bring them in, it’s about management, on top of loving them. Of course they wouldn’t be here if you didn’t love them. So, you manage time, so that you try, it’s not easy to manage, to divide your time equally. But because we have watched, this helps. If I spend an hour here, I will spend another hour here, at least you have proof of that, but you know, when I'm sitting like this with my wives around me, I can't just look at one wife, I have to look at all of them. I’m managing, I'm managing. Because the attention that you give a person, the eye contact, we are engaging. So, if I’m sitting and looking at only one wife, the other one next to me will say I'm not paying attention to her.
John Manyike 28:00
Paying attention to her.
Musa Mseleku 28:01
Exactly, you manage resources, money. That's where people like you come in, financial advisers. Bab’ Mseleku, if you earn R10 000, put R1000 here, and another R1000 there. So, you manage that, you manage your energy as well, because if you don’t manage your energy, let me tell it like this, you’re old. There’s intimacy in a polygamous marriage. Even if there isn’t polygamy, people are intimate. You can't arrive at your next wife and tell her you’re tired, I'm from my other wife… you were talking about jealousy earlier right? Because she’ll complain and say that the other wife took all your energy.
John Manyike 28:44
So, what do you do when you are tired?
Musa Mseleku 28:46
That is why you shouldn’t get into a polygamous marriage if you are old, a polygamous marriage requires one to go into it when they are young, when you still have energy, and let your wives grow with you and learn to understand you. They will reason with you, when you cannot perform because of age. You can’t say. You cause problems … for instance, you have an older wife in her 50s, then you go and take on another much younger wife in her 20s. You are causing a big problem, because a younger wife wants a man who is in her age group who will match her energy. The wife in her 50s will say, “No, it’s fine, we can do it once and then sleep”, but the younger wife in that situation will complain that you took her away from people in her age group, which requires you to get onto her level. Not just in intimacy, but also in the performance of other duties, let me explain. We have expectations of how a wife must conduct herself, be it her dress code, how she speaks, when she’s at church or at social gatherings and how she generally conducts herself. There are some wives that drink alcohol, so when you have an older wife who doesn’t drink alcohol, and the younger one goes to social gatherings where people drink alcohol, what do you expect to happen in your household? Because what’s going to happen is that the older one will complain that you say she mustn’t drink, but apparently the younger wife was seen out at a place drinking. You’re cause a lot of confusion in your home, which you can avoid by entering a polygamous marriage while you are still young. The right time to go into a polygamous marriage is when you are young. If you are well off then decide to take more wives at a later age then you will have to settle for an older woman because of her experience.
John Manyike 30:42
It means your mileage and experience matters in a polygamous marriage.
Musa Mseleku 30:44
A lot.
John Manyike 30:47
So, you bought your wives Mercedes Benz cars, 4 of them!
Musa Mseleku 30:48
Ya, ya.
John Manyike 30:52
How do you handle money matters in a polygamous marriage, let’s look at how you manage your groceries for example? With different families. How does it work? Do you all go grocery shopping together and then you arrive and swipe, or do you give each one their own budget? How does it work?
Musa Mseleku 31:07
The Mseleku household grocery bill per month is around R30 000, our groceries. Look at it like this, the basics like oil and things like that come up to around R4500, then you add your cleaning material, then you get up to around R6000, I may be underestimating … per household. Then you multiply for each household, which gets you to the R30 000 range, which means our income needs to be more than that. We start at a point of equality, which requires that everybody gets the same amount of money. Then we look at how many children per household, and how many people are in each household. In other words, we measure and analyse the needs of each household. We say, you are equal because you are all wives of this household, so you deserve so much. Then we also consider that the number of loaves of bread eaten in one household is not necessarily equal to the number of loaves of bread eaten in another wife’s household, therefore the husband needs to give a top up. Based on each wife’s situation, because the wives compete about why you gave one wife more money than you gave her, so it’s important to give them an equal amount of money. It’s better when you buy in bulk, it’s fine, but sometimes people's preferences are not the same. There will be one who doesn’t like one brand of rice and prefers another, I don't like this flour, I prefer this one. So for you to not get involved in those things, give them the money individually. We can increase the amount of money so there are no issues. Basic needs are the same, but the difference is the unique requirements per household. It’s like petrol, we try to subsidize petrol, you’d be surprised when I say that we try that as a family, we are subsidized, and those cars don’t bring in an income, they just drive them, so you can imagine how much of an expense we are faced with there.
John Manyike 33:21
Okay, so amongst your 4 wives, are they - apart from the budget you give them, are they financially independent?
Musa Mseleku 33:34
Two of them are employed, and the other two are self-employed. The good thing is that, I’m not involved in their work things or involved in how much anyone earns, I'm not involved. I play and provide my part. If they don’t save the money they make, they will have a crisis. Because when you are a father and a mother, let me put it like this, if you have a child who has an opportunity to make money, while you’re still alive, that child must save their money. If you haven’t said, please help me, but they were doing it, then they must save, because you are there as a parent taking care of the needs of the house, until you tell them that it's time for them to move out into their own flat. That will give them a jump start in life, which will give them that thing that you are asking me, “are they financially independent”, because they might not be financially independent, if they benefit from my budget and then they also spend the money they are earning. Then they are not. I always say to my wives that, because I am here between all of you to provide, use me, and save your money. It’s a very beautiful setup, but if you can’t see that, then you will spend all your money. In other words, fit your needs into the budget I give you, they shouldn’t impact your personal earnings because once you start eating into your own earnings, then you won’t be financially independent.
John Manyike 35:10
That will not work. So, the men that come to you to ask you to represent them in the negotiations with a family to acquire a new wife. When you look at them, do you think they can afford a polygamous set up?
Musa Mseleku 35:27
Moneywise, no they can't. There are two ways to afford polygamy. Your character, looking at how patient you are, because these people are not the same. Which means you as a man, are you able to separate and differentiate the personalities. You know, women in polygamous marriages can make the same mistake, but they way you deal with each one is different based on their character. Then they’ll be one that you reprimand and she won’t hear you, and instead, she will fight you. We assess your personality regarding your ability to deal with the two characters. So if you can’t do that, then don’t engage in polygamy, because, you as a person, you know, a polygamous marriage needs a lot of patience. It needs a lot of patience because, polygamy is vice versa. Our parents used to say, a wife must be patient, I say the man should be patient. When you are trying to persuade your wife, and she doesn’t agree with you, it teaches you … in fact, these lessons are even in economics, that you build on something for some quiet time so that you can have it.
John Manyike 36:45
Before we close, there’s a gentleman who, when he heard that I'd be talking to you, said he has a something he’d like to ask you. So I told him to send a voice note, which he sent. I’m going to play it now from Mr Dlamini in KZN. I hope you’ll hear it from where you’re sitting.
Voice Note - Mr Dlamini 37:12
The first question I have is, in this time we live in now, is there still a need for polygamy, and if there is, what is the need?
For my second question, in the current situation we live in as a society, what kind of a man should enter into a polygamy?
My third question is, once you are in a polygamous marriage, how do you share your love equally amongst your wives.
Musa Mseleku 37:57
Okay, he is asking if there’s a need for polygamy in this current age, it’s the same as asking if there’s a need for family. Is there a need for family because people nowadays don’t want to be a family, people want to be in a family set up, but also live their own lives. If there is still a need to build a family because we want to raise children with family values, then there is a need for polygamy. Because he seems to think that polygamy is driven by money but it’s not. Polygamy is driven by a lot of traditional things more than money. There can also be a situation where someone says there are people in this family that are not married, and I want to take on more wives. Each individual defines their need for polygamy. If there is a need for polygamy, why not. I would be so frustrated without my marriage. There is also someone who says, I was born as an only child, therefore I want to have a lot of children. There is no money involved in these scenarios, we’re not talking about money, we are talking about a need. So, each individual will define for themselves why they would want to be in a polygamous marriage. For example, there is someone who is not married, and they’ll say they don’t see a need to marry. I don’t have a need to have a partner, I want to live alone and travel the world, and then you try to prescribe that they should be married. So, if there is a need for you to have a family… I can’t see myself outside of a polygamous marriage, I would be so frustrated and so depressed. Which means it suits me. If one of my wives had to leave me I would cry, I would even come to you to ask you to help me. Even though there’s money, I'll cry because my wife left me.
In his second question, he says, in the time we are living in, I’d like to him to mention other than money, and speak about the fact that we now have diseases, how do we protect ourselves from illness, because having multiple partners is causing problems. When you have multiple girlfriends also depletes your money, meaning, are you intent on being a successful man who goes around booking hotels and sleeping with different women? So, when you look at the little money you make, and think about the money you spend dating a woman, it is a waste of time, because you can’t justify the spend. But the money you use on your children and your wife has value, because you are building your family with that money. It’s like you are giving money away, the one which you use when you are sleeping with different women. If he’s saying that we must do away with polygamy, but he dates women, so it’s better that we say there should be no dating and no polygamy. And we don’t allow dating, even in saying this, I am not comparing the two. I am saying that polygamy stands alone as an institution marriage that is important, because helps us avoid having fatherless children, and women who need and want husbands, but don’t have them. Then there's fights around who stole whose husband.
Musa Mseleku 40:56
So, lastly he asks, how do we balance things in this situation so we don’t have some wives that are loved more than others? It is so simple, honesty is important especially polygamy needs to be understood, and the reasons for getting into it. Some men get into polygamous marriages because they want to punish the first wife, you see once a man gets another wife to punish the first wife, then you will have a situation where the second wife is loved more than the first wife. Not only that, but now we are also building this relationship on hatred, it will never work. In fact, polygamy, John, if you want to get into it, needs you to not have anyone in particular in mind. You have to decide first that you want to take another wife, and then find someone who is going to fit into your family. Because, the question: - “What is lacking from me that compels you to take another wife?” - comes from there. making it seem like there is something wrong with the first wife, which is not true. Polygamy stands alone as an idea, that you want to take on another wife, because once it stands alone, it means that whether you were with this woman or not, you were going to take another wife. Because it's based on the values you hold, not an individual. Which means that when someone comes into the picture, you can say that you see that she can fit into your vision. Which means, whether you were there or not, I would be doing this. So, a person who asks - “What is lacking in me that compels you to take another wife?” - it’s because she thinks that she is the one that compelled you to do it
John Manyike 42:30
(Clan names) Mthombeni, Lwandle, we thank you. We’ve learned a lot today.
Musa Mseleku 42:36
I thank you
John Manyike 42:38
We learnt a lot from you today.
Musa Mseleku 42:39
Thank you so much.