Thirty-something and beautiful, two Nairobi women share a husband, live next to each other and defend their common love like sisters. Bertha Kang'ong'oi looks into modern polygamy.

Life is all about being happy. It is even better when you accept your source of happiness”, says Esther Mathu as we sit at a Nairobi cafe waiting for Joyce Mathu. The word happiness litters Esther’s remarks like popcorn, and the impression that it dominates her extraordinary life is clearly beyond question.

Esther and Joyce are polygamous partners of a new generation. They share a husband, are aged thirtysomething and are proud of it. Each wears their common husband’s name, Mathu, like a badge - openly and with pride.

And they live like sisters, united in their domestic and working lives, not by blood, but by their love for the same man and the unusual two-way destiny he has charted for their uncommon family. 

So what are two beautiful women, who are assertive  and financially astute, doing in a relationship which most people their age would frown upon and which defies the common perception of polygamy as a custom of Old Africa?

“I wanted to make my life better”, says Esther as she traces the dramatic origin of their eye-popping union. “I wanted to make it more comfortable. If part of that meant my husband having to take another wife, then I decided to let it be because despite all that was unravelling, I still loved him too.”

Esther, Joyce and the man in their lives, Mathu, sit facing me as we openly discuss their uncommon marital life. Even the very idea of interviewing them together for three hours as they unflinchingly explore their past and their feelings signals an attitudinal shift hard to come by. Jealousy? no evidence of it or it is most skillfully concealed. Regret? The reality of their present lives clearly overshadows any rosy comparisons made with the lives of their other married friends.

I’m trying to figure out the special thing which makes Alfred Mathu achieve what many men only live in their dreams and defies the known preference of every post-uhuru Kenyan woman.

A hint of his go-getter instinct comes in his rating as one of the top 50 life insurance sales agents in the country (and having received an award for it only last month). And he has gingerly maintained his marriage to these two beautiful women for a remarkable - and not always an uneventful - seven years.

Mathu is 33, his first wife Esther is one year younger and Joyce, the second wife, is 31. Mathu says he is legally married to both women - he has a marriage certificate with both and has paid full dowry to their families. I hold back the thought that this might be illegal.

Wisely, Mathu has rented the two different houses. He shuttles between Esther’s four-bedroom bungalow at Donholm and Joyce’s three-bedroom abode right next door. For that, he does not need his E series Mercedes Benz, which will be parked outside whichever home he has pitched camp in for the day, or night.

True to form, Mathu has set up for each wife a business, both wholesale electronics shops. Esther’s is situated on Nairobi’s River road while Joyce’s is on Ambala road, a few blocks away. At their disposal are a Honda Civic SUV and a  pick-up.

Both shops have the same name, Mawamu electronics, a name they coined from their names Mathu, Wanjiku and Munjiru. The ‘trio’ go to the Nairobi Baptist church. The affair is only a wonder to those outside the extended Mathu family. His mother, for instance prepares a room for the three when they visit her upcountry.

If education and upringing are a factor in marital choice, then the two women’s  willing entry into polygamy was a triumph of love over convention. Both went to school up to Form Four and would easily have gone into white collar professions.

Esther married Mathu first, in 1995, while he was still at university. She was a budding trader, running a small electronics retail shop.

“I had never had any reason to be suspicious that my husband could be seeing another woman,” she recalls. “He had never given me any reason to.”

Then one evening, the two had a conversation that changed their lives. Discussing extra marital relationships, they slipped into a mutual committment which only underlined their deep fondness for one another. 

Says Esther “I told Mathu, ‘if ever you get involved with another woman, please let me know. It’s better for me to know than to be kept in the dark’. Mathu told me that I was the only woman in his life and assured me of all his love.”

But the next morning, Mathu said he had something to tell her. “He called me aside and told me that after our discussion, he had decided to come clean. He confessed he had a girlfriend.”

Says Esther: “I didn’t see it coming.” He apologised, saying he had never meant to hurt me and assured me that in the two years that he had known this other woman, he had not touched her.”

I turn to Joyce and ask whether that was true. “No it wasn’t true. He had not only touched me but we had an eight-month-old baby!” Esther discovered this much later though.

She questioned Mathu closely, swinging between anger and jealousy, but finally calmed down and accepted the bitter reality. “I asked him all the questions I could about the other woman all the while wondering what he saw in her that made him want her.”

It turned out that the other woman, Joyce, was a family friend. She had known Joyce for about two years but never suspected anything.

Joyce puts in: “I didn’t know that Mathu was married when I was dating him. I lived in Nakuru and he often came to see me there. I knew I was the only one and never suspected he had another relationship, let alone a wife.”

The truth leapt out to her in an encounter at Kangemi, Nairobi, carefully arranged by Mathu, whose love she has never doubted. 

Mathu did not tell Joyce whom she was going to meet. She was taken to a house in Kangemi, where a woman greeted her and addressed Mathu as “baba Masha” (father of Macharia)

It was then she knew that Mathu was married.

“I was terribly hurt,” recalls Joyce. “I had never wanted to be involved with a married man. Besides, I wasn’t going to be the one that breaks up a marriage. And I let Mathu know as much!”

Mathu, on the other hand, was not ready to let go of either woman.

“I was shocked to discover there was another woman but I still loved him. He had not once mistreated me and still confessed his love for me,” says Esther. “But I knew I had to make a quick decision. I didn’t want to regret anything later. My friends advised me to leave and my family wanted me out but I had to think for myself, what would make me happy.”

Esther thought long and hard and made the most difficult decision of her life: She would stay with her husband.

The story was much the same with Joyce. “Although I struggled with the idea of becoming a second wife, I also realised that I loved Mathu too much to let go of him. He had also vowed not to let go of me. He had no money then and I only decided to become his second wife because I loved him.”

Over lunch, Mathu and his two partners formally discussed how to conduct their new relationship.

Says Joyce. “I accepted that I was Number Two and would be second in all things. I recognised I would always give Esther priority. I told Mathu that if ever Esther decided to leave on my account, then I would leave too.”

That was in 1999. Joyce already had Mathu’s son while Esther had two children, a boy and a girl. For a while, they all lived under the same roof in Donholm estate and the three retired every night to one bedroom.

Perhaps reading the shock on my face, Joyce quickly adds: “That was not the first time that the three of us shared a bed.” Once they went on holiday with friends and he had no choice but to book all of them into the same room. 

“People are always amazed that we can do this” says Joyce. “When we went to South Africa, we had only one room and other guests were surprised!

At Donholm Mathu ensures he does not spend more than two nights in the same house.

“This was not something that we planned. It just happened,” says Esther.

“Now we are used to this arrangement. It is great. I doubt I would have enjoyed it this much if I was alone in another marriage”, says Joyce.

Esther is the more philosophical of the two: “If a man has made up his mind to take another wife, there will be no changing him. Those who oppose and fight the man about it end up suffering more. The man moves on with his life while the woman nurses ulcers.”

Joyce adds, “Esther was magnanimous enough to agree to this arrangement. All our lives are so much better. Even Mathu’s career has flourished. He doesn’t have to live a lie.”

Do they fear Mathu could marry a third wife? Esther and Joyce shake their heads in unison. Very unlikely, but Joyce adds: “We can’t swear, though. But we haven’t seen any signs to suggest that he would.”

For Mathu, sharing his love comes almost naturally. “It is not impossible to love two women at the same time. Men all over the world have wives, mistresses and girlfriends in their lives at the same time. The only difference is that I’m  honest about it and fully committed my wives “

How does he prevent quarrels and fights? “My wives are my best friends. We care about each other and go out together.”

He offers a tip on keeping such a marriage intact. “The first wife comes first in all things and the second is always second. That is something the man should let both of them understand from the very beginning.”