What happens when an African cultural institution is stripped of the rules, obligations and social structures that historically governed it — and the resulting dysfunction is presented as a portrait of the institution itself?
That is the uncomfortable question raised by The Polygamist, the South African television drama that has prompted renewed debate about the representation of polygamy in contemporary African popular culture.
South African politician and academic Dr Khanyisile Litchfield-Tshabalala has offered a particularly provocative interpretation.
Her argument is not that every traditional African polygamous marriage was harmonious, equitable or free from abuse. Rather, she challenges the tendency to collapse polygamy, promiscuity, infidelity and sexual irresponsibility into one category.
For her, that distinction is fundamental.
Traditional African polygyny, she argues, operated as a social institution with rules.
What The Polygamist portrays, by contrast, is essentially a man pursuing multiple women through deception, sexual gratification and manipulation.
If that is the distinction, then the debate is no longer simply about a television programme.
It becomes a debate about who gets to define African culture — and what happens when an indigenous institution is interpreted through a modern Western individualist framework.
Polygamy was never simply “a man having many women”
One of the easiest mistakes in conversations about African polygamy is to reduce it to arithmetic:
one man + several women = polygamy.
Historically, that description is inadequate.
Across many African societies, plural marriage was embedded within kinship structures, inheritance systems, lineage organisation, economics, religion and community obligations.
The institution could determine questions of property, succession, children's identities, alliances between families and the distribution of household labour.
A man who took additional wives was not merely acquiring additional sexual partners.
He was acquiring additional social and economic responsibilities.
That distinction is particularly important in societies where marriage was not understood exclusively as a private romantic relationship between two autonomous individuals.
Marriage could involve families, clans and communities.
A husband therefore had obligations not only to an individual wife but to the wider household and kinship network.
The precise rules differed enormously across African societies.
There was never one universal “African polygamy.”
Yoruba marriage traditions were not identical to Zulu ones.
Igbo practices were not identical to those of the Maasai.
Shona customs were not identical to Akan traditions.
Islamic polygyny was governed by another set of religious principles.
So any attempt to speak about “traditional African polygamy” must acknowledge this diversity.
But the broader point remains:
plural marriage in many African societies was an institution, not simply sexual consumption.
The difference between polygyny and promiscuity
This distinction is almost embarrassingly obvious, yet modern discussions frequently erase it.
A man who secretly maintains multiple sexual relationships is not necessarily practising polygamy.
A polygynous marriage involves recognised marital relationships.
That recognition matters because it creates obligations.
The wives know about one another.
Children have recognised relationships with their father and other members of the household.
Inheritance arrangements exist.
Responsibilities are established.
Kinship relationships are acknowledged.
The man cannot simply disappear when the excitement disappears.
In an idealised description of traditional polygyny, additional marriage therefore meant additional responsibility.
Not simply additional sexual access.
That is why describing every polygamous man as an African equivalent of a serial womaniser can be historically misleading.
The two behaviours can look superficially similar from outside while being radically different institutions.
But tradition should not be romanticised
There is an equally important danger on the other side.
Defending the historical complexity of African polygyny does not require pretending that traditional societies were gender-equal utopias.
They were not.
Women could have limited autonomy.
Power could be concentrated in husbands and male elders.
Jealousy existed.
Competition between co-wives existed.
Forced or socially pressured marriages existed.
Economic inequality existed.
And women did not necessarily possess the same bargaining power as men.
Those realities should not be erased simply because contemporary critics sometimes caricature African traditions.
A serious discussion therefore has to resist two opposite distortions.
The first says:
“African polygamy was barbaric sexual exploitation.”
The second says:
“Traditional African polygamy was perfect and harmonious.”
Neither is historically serious.
The reality was more complicated.
What changes when the institution enters modern television?
This is where The Polygamist becomes culturally interesting.
Television needs conflict.
A conventional monogamous marriage already provides writers with jealousy, betrayal, sex, inheritance, family conflict and competing loyalties.
Introduce several wives into the same household and the dramatic possibilities multiply.
But there is a potential problem.
A fictional drama can gradually become a cultural explanation.
Viewers who have never experienced traditional polygyny may come away believing that its defining characteristics are:
- sexual competition;
- deception;
- male irresponsibility;
- emotional manipulation;
- infidelity;
- narcissism;
- jealousy;
- exploitation.
The institution becomes synonymous with its worst possible practitioner.
And that is precisely the criticism being made by Litchfield-Tshabalala.
The “bastardisation” argument
Her argument can be reduced to a simple proposition:
A man behaving badly while maintaining multiple relationships is not necessarily a representation of polygamy.
He may simply be behaving badly.
Imagine a fictional series about Christianity in which the protagonist attends church on Sunday but spends the rest of the week defrauding people.
Would it be reasonable to conclude that fraud is an essential feature of Christianity?
Of course not.
Likewise, depicting a dishonest man manipulating several women does not automatically tell us what a culturally regulated polygynous institution historically looked like.
The question is whether the programme is intentionally examining a dysfunctional individual or implicitly presenting his behaviour as representative of the cultural institution itself.
That is where interpretation becomes contested.
Enter neoliberalism
The phrase “neoliberal cultural psy-op” sounds deliberately provocative.
But it raises an interesting theoretical question.
Modern neoliberal culture tends to emphasise the individual as the primary unit of social life.
Personal choice.
Personal freedom.
Personal consumption.
Personal fulfilment.
Personal sexual autonomy.
The individual becomes the centre of the moral universe.
Traditional African social systems often placed greater emphasis on collective obligations.
Family.
Lineage.
Community.
Ancestors.
Children.
Kinship.
Reciprocity.
Social reputation.
Marriage was therefore not necessarily conceptualised as simply:
“Two individuals love each other, therefore they marry.”
It could instead be part of a much larger social architecture.
From that perspective, a cultural institution cannot be fully understood by examining only individual sexual desire.
It must be understood through the obligations that surround it.
Could entertainment quietly rewrite cultural memory?
This is where the “psy-op” thesis becomes worth discussing — but not necessarily literally.
There does not need to be a secret government programme instructing television producers to destroy African culture.
Cultural narratives can change without central coordination.
Film producers respond to markets.
Writers respond to contemporary values.
Broadcasters respond to audiences.
Audiences respond to changing social norms.
And over time, repeated representations can normalise a particular interpretation.
This is how cultural power often works.
Nobody needs to sit in a room and say:
“Let's destroy this African institution.”
If enough popular culture repeatedly portrays something as backward, dysfunctional or immoral, the audience can eventually internalise the association.
That is cultural framing.
It does not require a conspiracy.
The colonial history cannot be ignored
The debate also exists within a much longer history.
European colonialism did not simply conquer African territory.
It reorganised African social institutions.
Missionaries frequently condemned indigenous marriage practices and promoted Christian monogamy.
Colonial administrators codified customary law.
Courts determined which African practices would be recognised and which would be classified as unacceptable.
European social norms were frequently presented as civilisation itself.
African practices could consequently become objects of anthropological curiosity, religious condemnation or legal regulation.
This history matters because contemporary Africans sometimes inherit cultural judgments whose origins are much older than the television programmes now expressing them.
That does not mean every criticism of polygamy is colonial.
It means the history of how African marriage systems were interpreted by outsiders deserves examination.
Christianity and Islam complicated the picture
Africa's contemporary debate over polygamy also cannot be separated from religion.
Christianity generally promoted monogamous marriage, although African Christianity developed its own complex relationship with pre-existing marriage traditions.
Islam, meanwhile, permits a Muslim man to marry up to four wives under specific conditions.
Consequently, contemporary African attitudes toward polygyny are not simply “traditional Africa versus Western culture.”
They are the product of multiple interacting traditions:
indigenous African institutions + Christianity + Islam + colonial law + modern state law + feminism + capitalism + urbanisation + popular culture.
The result is a complicated social landscape.
The economic foundation has changed
There is another reason contemporary polygamy can look dramatically different from historical versions.
The economic system changed.
Many traditional African societies operated economies in which extended households could function as productive units.
Agriculture required labour.
Livestock required labour.
Large households could distribute economic responsibilities.
A husband with several wives might therefore preside over an economically integrated household.
Modern urban life is different.
Rent is expensive.
Children's education is expensive.
Healthcare is expensive.
Urban households increasingly depend on salaried employment.
The economic basis that supported some forms of historical polygyny has weakened.
The institution therefore enters modernity carrying an old structure into a completely different economic environment.
That can generate enormous tension.
The modern African polygamist may be trapped between two worlds
Consider the contemporary wealthy African man who takes several wives.
He may claim traditional legitimacy.
But his household may exist inside a radically modern capitalist economy.
Each wife may expect separate accommodation.
Children may attend expensive private schools.
Healthcare costs multiply.
Inheritance becomes complicated.
Property disputes can become legally explosive.
The emotional expectations of modern romantic relationships collide with the collective logic of traditional marriage.
The result can be profoundly unstable.
But again, that instability does not necessarily prove that the historical institution itself was inherently dysfunctional.
It may demonstrate what happens when an institution is transplanted into a radically different social and economic environment.
And women have changed too
Perhaps the biggest difference between historical and contemporary polygyny is the changing position of women.
Modern African women are increasingly educated, economically independent and politically assertive.
They may not accept the authority structures their grandmothers were expected to accept.
They may demand emotional exclusivity.
They may reject the idea that a husband's decision to take another wife is automatically legitimate.
They may insist on independent property rights.
They may leave marriages.
They may publicly challenge patriarchal traditions.
These changes cannot simply be dismissed as “Westernisation.”
African women themselves are actively redefining African womanhood.
That is why the debate cannot simply become:
“The West is attacking African culture.”
African societies are changing from within.
So is The Polygamist a cultural psy-op?
There is currently no evidence that the television series was created as part of a coordinated neoliberal operation to destroy African polygamy.
That claim requires evidence of intentional coordination.
But there is a legitimate cultural question beneath it:
Does contemporary African entertainment sometimes portray indigenous institutions through moral frameworks that have been heavily shaped by colonialism, Christianity, Western individualism and modern urban life?
Absolutely worth asking.
And the question should not be limited to polygamy.
It could be asked about:
African spirituality.
Traditional leadership.
Indigenous medicine.
Communal land ownership.
Extended families.
Bridewealth.
Traditional masculinity.
Female initiation.
Ancestor veneration.
And the meaning of marriage itself.
The danger is not criticism.
The danger is caricature.
Culture deserves criticism — but also accuracy
A culture should never become immune from criticism simply because it is indigenous.
If a traditional institution harms people, it should be examined.
If women are oppressed, that should be discussed.
If children suffer, that should be discussed.
If men exploit cultural traditions to justify irresponsible behaviour, that should be condemned.
But criticism requires accuracy.
If a television drama depicts deception and sexual irresponsibility, call it deception and sexual irresponsibility.
If it depicts patriarchal power, analyse patriarchal power.
If it depicts dysfunctional relationships, analyse dysfunctional relationships.
But do not automatically transform the behaviour of a fictional character into a definition of an entire historical institution.
The real battle may be over who gets to define “African”
Perhaps the most interesting question raised by this controversy is not whether polygamy is good or bad.
It is:
Who has the authority to define African culture?
Colonial administrators once did.
Missionaries did.
Anthropologists did.
European courts did.
Modern governments do.
Religious institutions do.
Hollywood does.
African filmmakers do.
African feminists do.
African men do.
African women do.
And increasingly, algorithms do.
Every time a television programme presents an African tradition to millions of viewers, it participates in that negotiation.
That is cultural power.
The institution and the individual must be separated
There is a simple principle that could make this debate much more productive:
Judge the man separately from the institution.
A polygamous man can be abusive.
That does not prove polygamy is abuse.
A monogamous man can be abusive.
That does not prove monogamy is abuse.
A polygamous man can be faithful.
A monogamous man can be unfaithful.
A traditional marriage can be oppressive.
A modern marriage can be oppressive.
The institution provides a framework.
Human beings determine what they do inside it.
That distinction is essential.
Perhaps the real lesson is not to defend polygamy
The deeper lesson may be to defend historical accuracy.
Africans should be able to criticise their traditions without caricaturing them.
They should be able to preserve what worked without preserving what harmed people.
They should be able to modernise institutions without pretending those institutions never existed.
And they should be able to ask whether contemporary cultural narratives are genuinely African, genuinely Western, or — as is increasingly the case — a complicated mixture of both.
The Polygamist therefore provides an interesting cultural mirror.
Perhaps it is simply entertainment.
Perhaps it is a reflection of the contradictions surrounding marriage in contemporary South Africa.
Perhaps it is a critique of patriarchy.
Perhaps it is an exploration of male sexuality.
Or perhaps, as Litchfield-Tshabalala argues, it represents an institution through such a distorted lens that viewers are encouraged to confuse polygyny with promiscuity.
The evidence does not establish a coordinated “neoliberal psy-op.”
But the question the controversy raises is legitimate:
When African traditions are repeatedly represented as dysfunctional, primitive or inherently abusive, are we watching African culture being criticised — or watching a new cultural definition of Africa being constructed?
That question deserves a much bigger conversation.
Because preserving African culture does not mean preserving every traditional practice.
And modernising Africa does not require pretending that everything African was backward.
Between romanticising tradition and demonising it lies something increasingly rare: the willingness to understand it.
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