When culture equals femicide: ‘affluent polygyny’ a South African dilemma

Abstract

Polygyny is still prevalent in South Africa though the country is ravished by the AIDS pandemic. This article aims to highlight the effects of affluent polygyny on South African women. The findings were very much indicative of the dangers of entering into these arrangements because of socio-economic issues and the high rate of unemployment. This dependency causes women to agree to marry already married men for financial stability. Postcolonial feminist scholarship advanced by black women who were subjected recolonization as their ideas and concepts is the theoretical underpinning for this paper. This theory highlights the complexity of marginalisation of women in affluent polygyny in a previously colonised country. The article asserts that postcolonial feminist theory provides a further understanding of how women suffer at the hands of polygynists. The theory of Gender and Power is also used to understand the gendered relations of affluent polygyny in contemporary times because in African traditional societies, polygyny is perceived as a sociological issue.

Key words: polygyny, postcolonial feminist theory, affluence, HIV/AIDS, gender and power