Page 28 Teaching Anthropology: S ACC Notes.Vol 5, No 2. Fall-Winter. 1998

Adding a Co-WifeLeanna Wolfe

El Camino College (CA)

(Editor's note: Angela and Dash are pseud-onyms)

The spring before last, Don, my part-ner of four years, invited Angela, awoman I didn't know very well, to be-come his secret lover. He toldher that it would be fine with ^ ^me in that I encourage him tohave "special friends." I wasroyally pissed when I foundout. I felt that I wasn't enoughfor him. I feared that I wasn'tsexy, attractive, passionate andloving enough. When I onlysensed her presence as hislover, I attempted to amp upthe passion. My gut instinctwas that he'd refocus his at-tentions on me.

My intensification had nosuch effect and Angela soonadmitted to me that she'd been his loverfor several months. Although uneasy,she couldn't break it off because to herthe connection they shared was ex-tremely meaningful and powerful.What followed were months of pain,anger, passion and exhaustion. While Iliked Angela as a person, part of me wasangry enough to want to wring her neckout. And while I never stopped lovingDon, I was non-stop furious with himfor breaking what I believed was a mo-nogamous agreement.

Many of my friends advised me toleave Don. Honestly, I was tempted.Despite his efforts to prove that he lovedme as always, Angela's presence madethat extremely difficult. My bodycouldn't understand how he could loveme and spend the night with her. I'dtoss and fret all night and when mom-ing came I'd be exhausted. Meanwhile,Angela secretly hoped I'd leave Don sothe specialness that she felt about theirconnection could be better realized.

I didn't leave Don because I had anagenda. As an anthropologist who hadbeen studying polygamy for manyyears, I sought a more personal under-standing of multiple partner relation-

ships. I'd had dalliances with marriedmen, "open relationships" where I hadan outside lover, and attended swingparties. The piece that I didn't knowwas that of being the "first wife." Upuntil Angela's arrival in my life, I'dnever thought that multiple partneringshad anything to do with pain. WhileI'd studied the biological underpinningsof jealousy, I really didn't know it fromthe inside. I remember once being in-

vited to give a lecture about my researchand was astounded that many of thewomen had come to find out how todeal with their partner's infidelity. Icouldn't relate to their anger—it wastotally out of my realm of personalknowledge.

My research in polyamory andswinging had shown that whenthe women forge a connection,the tensions of sharing a man

could be relieved.

I took what had arrived as an oppor-tunity to better understand infidelity,jealousy, and myself. Initially, I pre-sumed that Don and Angela wouldwaltz off into the sunset together andthat eventually I'd find a new partnerand life would be good again. Mean-while, Angela and I engaged in an an-gry battle for Don's time and attention.She claimed that because he professedequal love for her, she should have equaltime with him. Despite the fact that helived with me, she wanted him to spendevery other night with her. I was as-tounded. I presumed that being the pri-mary (and public) partner, he should

spend most of his time with me and thatthe only role open for her was that of asecondary lover.

I told her about what I considered tobe the "benefits" of being the second-ary. You never had to do laundry, dealwith bills, housework or yard work, andthat whenever your lover arrived, hewas excited to see you. I made it soundso good to myself that I secretly hopedto become such a mistress. Meanwhile

Angela stood fast to her de-sire not to be Don's mistress.When he came to visit hershe wanted to engage him in"normal" activities likewatching videos, doingcrossword puzzles, and eat-ing TV dinners.

My research in polyamoryand swinging had shownthat when the women forgea connection, the tensions ofsharing a man could be re-lieved. With hopes of less-ening the pain that kept meawake whenever Don wasn't

in my arms at night, I attempted to be-come close to Angela. Initially, the at-tempt was extremely challenging.While Angela and I had certainly knownof each other before she got involvedwith Don, we were never drawn to eachother. There was no compelling reasonfor us to see more of each other and sowe didn't. Now suddenly, we "needed"to connect and so we tried. While wedid fine discussing our mutual pain,complaining how Don didn't give ei-ther of us enough focused attention andhow difficult the "situation" was, we feltlittle good will towards each other. Iwas the woman keeping her from hav-ing full time access to the man sheloved, while she was the woman whohad so painfully disrupted my sweet andloving home life. If I witnessed a lov-ing moment between her and Don, Icringed and then felt intensely jealous.I became convinced that he kissed hermore passionately than he kissed meand that he was much more turned onto her sexually. I didn't want to see itand I didn't want to compete. Despitemy academic curiosity about polygamy,my anger and jealousy were so intenseI didn't feel I could be a candidate.

TeachingAnthropology: SACCNotes.VolS.No^ Fall-Winter, 1998 Page 29To me, Don and Angela's relationship

was filled with hot, passionate, incred-ibly intense "new relationship energy."My older, more settled relationship withDon was filled with daily squabbles,deeper power struggles, and under-handed (but really funny) jokes. In mymind, it couldn't compete. Pretty soonI created a long list of things that I wasconvinced Angela did better than me.In addition to being a better lover (what-ever that means), she was a better cook(she faithfully followed every recipedetail, while I'd just do what I feel like).She also kept her house cleaner (she hasa housekeeper tidy up every week), andultimately was a better companion forDon (having recently met him she couldbetter find most everything he has tosay interesting). I began to perceiveAngela as became one of the "goody-goody-girls" that I was not going tobother competing with. I was con-vinced she'd win and that there was noreason to even try. Instead I became arebel.

My rebellion began by proclaiming Iwas going to go to Africa for at least ayear and then by getting involved withDash, a man Don considered his totalantithesis. I made no effort to keep myinvolvement with Dash a secret. Iflaunted it everywhere. I nibbed Don'sface in it and caused our whole com-munity of friends to see it as well.

Meanwhile, Dash didn't have an easytime of it. While the connection he andI shared was tender as well as lots offun, Don did his best to dismiss him.While I had attempted to reach out toAngela, Don failed to respond to Dash'sefforts to forge a connection. Ulti-mately, the only person who might havegained something from this act of re-bellion was Angela. Don would get soangry with me that he'd spend everynight with her, while shunning me asbeing polluted-by-the-enemy.

I spun off further and further into alost and disconnected state. I couldn'tplease anyone. If I dallied at Dash's,attempting to bask in the feeling of be-ing footloose and free, I'd arrive hometo Don's stormy anger. If doing some-thing with Don caused me to show uplate for a date with Dash, I felt I wasn'treally available for the commitment and

connection that Dash sought. I was ina lose-lose situation. Dash wouldn'taccept me if I left Don for him and yetat the same time he wanted to have acommitted primary relationship withme. While I proposed that he could bemy co-primary (in that Angela had be-come Don's co-primary), Don's disdainfor him exacerbated the possibility.

s • . . - ^

Meanwhile, Don was gettingexhausted by having to be "on"

so much of the time. He couldn'tjust be—he constantly had to

prove his love to me and then toAngela and then again to me...

V /

Sometimes I fantasized about leavingDon on my own accord, but I justcouldn't get myself to budge. We wereso joined at the hip and through ourhearts, I couldn't find my way out.Moreover, whatever was in store hadso much drama, intrigue and energy,that I couldn't gather my things togetherand tell everyone good-bye.

We barely weathered the winter holi-days. Angela absented herself forThanksgiving and Christmas, request-ing that she get these with Don the fol-lowing year. I was aghast. My fanta-sies about polyamory were far from thisreality. I thought by adding anotherperson to an already standing relation-ship, a family would be expanded, notdivided. In her mind the only wayThanksgiving could be good would beif he were seated at her family's tableas her life partner. And I guess I wouldjust disappear in midair, realizing I'dalready had four Thanksgivings withhim and now it was time to share!

Angela came by for an early Christ-mas Eve and showered us with gifts. Ifelt uneasy that I had gotten her so littlecompared to what she'd gotten me...andalso that she'd spent more on her giftsto Don that one Christmas than I'd spentcumulatively over the four years we'dbeen together! I felt so cheap in herpresence. Clearly she was the "goody-goody" and I wasn't. I was stingy, acareless cook, a sloppy housekeeper,and moreover, I found much of whatDon had to say repetitive, if not boring.

Angela, however, feared I was uneasy

because I didn't want her in my homefor the holidays. That was hardly myreality! By then, I believed she was hereto stay and that rather than carvingDon's time up into pieces that she couldpack up and take home with her, sheought to sit by the fire and join our fam-ily. By late December, Angela let it beknown that since she had absented her-self for both Thanksgiving and Christ-mas, it was only fair that Don spendNew Year's Eve with her. While in mywildest polyamorous dreams I mighthave fantasized that we would all passinto the New Year together, it didn't fee]right to her. With the tensions betweenus thickening by the hour, I determinedthat the right thing for me to do was toget out of town. Don balked that hefelt so bad that I wouldn't be with himat that special hour and the next day aswell. I too felt horrible, but with thecompetition so intense, I figured heshould sleep in the bed he'd made.

Truthfully, Don enjoyed having twoseparate lives. At Angela's he'd stepaway from all the chaos of leaky roofs,over grown trees, dead computers, bro-ken down cars, destructive cats andpiles of unsorted magazines and mail,and bask in white sheets and pick froma zillion satellite TV channels. As faras he was concerned, if we were all tolive together, he'd have no place to es-cape. And since Angela's only relation-ship model was heterosexual mo-nogamy, she at least wanted access tothe semblance of that by having Don toherself as often as possible. The moreshe grew attached to Don, the less sheliked sharing him. And the more at-tached I imagined he was to her, the lessI cared for either of them.

Angela's presence in our lifescrambled all of the issues that Don andI had struggled over. For years I hadpleaded with him to father a child withme, and just in the last year he had re-lented and we began to try. Every timemy period arrived, I'd feel deeply sad.For him it seemed like it was enough tojust try. Engaging him in discussionsover my sadness or seeking outside helpwas way too much to ask of him. Andnow with Angela's demands on his time(and his body), my wishes for a childwent to the farthest back burner. An-

Page 30 Teaching Anthropology: SACC Notes, Vol 5, No 2, Fall-Winter, 1998

gela even surmised that it was likely thatone reason he forged a connection withher was his uneasiness over the agree-ment he had made with me.

Another area Don and I had struggledover was his need for more focused at-tention than I could deliver. Generally,my appetite for sustained intimacy isn'tas high as Don says his is. He'd com-plain I'd fall asleep in the middle ofconversations and believed that I hadgrown tired of him and his stories. WithAngela demanding equal time with himand professing a deep love for nearlyeverything about him, suddenly he be-came a prize. Suddenly this man that Ihad so taken for granted became in-tensely desirable. Suddenly every mo-ment together mattered.

Meanwhile, Don was getting ex-hausted by having to be "on" so muchof the time. He couldn't just be—heconstantly had to prove his love to meand then to Angela and then again tome... While Angela and I felt like wehad far too much time alone, Don barelyhad a moment to just stare into space orread a magazine. Upon reflection, thiswas really odd that two attractive 40-something women with lots to say andlots to offeer were spending so muchtime alone while a 50-something man,who was no more desireable than they,was in such high demand. Soon all Dondid when he arrived anywhere was tovisjt ever so briefly and then collapseonto couches, floors and into bed.

Mid-January arrived and, as I hadannounced four months earlier, I left forEast Africa. I left because I needed abreak from the competition, the chaosand the constant interpersonal dramas.I figured Don and Angela needed timealone to get to know each other—to findout if what they felt they had was morethan projection and fantasy. I neededfor them to get through some of thatnew-relationship-compulsivity. Ineeded for Angela to feel like she wason more equal footing with me. Theonly adjustment I'd made to my planswas to stay away for two long monthsrather than a full year. Beyond beingI1 time zones away, Africa afforded mejust the adventure I needed.

The Africa I visited was filled withpeople who had an intimate understand-

ing of polygamy, either from being wit-ness to their parents' polygynousunions, partaking in one themselves orknowing many details about those oftheir siblings or friends. I presentedmyself to them as a "first wife" who

African co-wives had so manysocial obligations, both to theirchildren and to their extended

families, that a husband's absencehad little emotional impact

needed help in understanding how tolive with my new "co-wife." For onceI was in a place where I was treated withconsideration and respect rather thanbeing made to feel like a fool for toler-ating my husband's dalliance. One firstwife advised me that it would take abouttwo years to adjust...and that for her,too, it was very difficult to suddenly beexpected to share all that had been hers.Now sharing in the hinterland villagethat I visited in East Africa was quitedifferent from sharing in urbanAmerica. In East Africa, tensions arosewhen a husband unfairly divided foodand other material resources betweenhis wives. To alleviate suspicions, hus-bands would divide new acquisitionsout in the open. Any deviation from anequitable division would have to beexplained (e.g. a wife who hadhouseguests, more children, etc.).

Back at home, neither Angela nor Iwas dependent on Don's earnings orwealth. Both of us had been self-sup-porting all of our adult lives and more-over gained much satisfaction from ourrespective careers. The commoditiesthat we struggled over were Don's time,energy, and affection. In East Africatraditional polygynous husbands visittheir wives on a three-day-rotation. Ihad no idea where this practice camefrom, but I know it would have drivenAngela and me crazy to only be able tosee Don in three-day spurts. Mean-while, Don was so focused on provinghis love to each of us that all that seemedemotionally feasible was to do anightly-rotation.

African co-wives had so many socialobligations, both to their children and

to their extended families, that ahusband's absence had little emotionalimpact. Back home, Angela and I feltvirtually abandoned if Don wasn't vis-iting. When I had shared how differentthe social and emotional parameters ofpolygyny are for rural East Africanswhen compared to us professional ur-ban Americans, we had endeavored tospend our weekends all together. Some-times it seemed to work; then othertimes, it seemed like we were still onground zero.

Don saw more of Angela than I did.He would make agreements with herand neglect to inform me. Suddenly outof the blue he would announce that hewas spending Saturday night and Sun-day with her and was convinced he hadtold me. I'd sense that if I objected,she would be angry for weeks to come.So to keep some semblance of peace,I'd say nothing, but then Don would seethis abandoned-puppy-look in my eyesand ask if I was okay. When my voicewould crack and tears would start towell, he'd feel powerless.

In East Africa, the older, wealthier andmore powerful men are expected to takeon the responsibility of additional wives(and their children). In fact a man islooked at askance when it's clear thathe could marry a widowed sister-in-lawand hadn't. Moreover, many youngwomen marry men 15 or more yearstheir senior because their abilities toprovide are well established. Mean-while, back at home, Don often getslittle more than grief for being polygy-nous. Attempting to meet the social,emotional, and sexual needs of two pro-fessional American women, while noeasy task, is not something that our so-ciety commends. While men who do-nate to charities, adopt unwanted chil-dren, and otherwise dispense theirwealth and services to the unfortunateare admired in America; men with mul-tiple women are seen as greedy, selfishand deceptive. While some men mayenvy "the task" of satisfying two (ormore) women, the emotional-time-en-ergy-reality is hardly any man's fantasy.

When I first learned of Don's interestin Angela, it was clear to me that I wasno longer his favorite woman. Beingnew, I was convinced she was clearly

Teaching Anthropology: SACCNotes,Vol5,No2, Fall-Winter, 1998 Page 31

more exciting. While he would bendover backwards and do the splits to gettogether with her, I felt pretty easy todismiss. In America, a wife knows thatall is well when her husband assures herthat she is his "one and only." Any timethat unique status is challenged, shefears the total dissolution of the mar-riage. If another woman is absorbingher husband's time and energy, there isno way her place in his life is secure.Being an American, I sensed Angelawould soon replace me.

The Africans had so much to teach meabout the dynamics of favoritism!While African men say they do every-thing they can to make each wife be anequal, the wives clearly sense who isthe favorite. But unlike in America,favorites have no more rights or re-sources than the others do. Women whoknew they were the favorites didn'tflaunt it in front of the others, while thenon-favorites simply shrugged it off.Being a favorite might be analogous tobeing Miss America: you could be it fora year, but then the next year you aresurely replaced. It's not a permanentstatus and ultimately it has little mean-ing or value in terms of marital secu-rity. In Africa, a co-wife is typically"the favorite" until a subsequent one isadded. So the first wife would be thefavorite until a second wife was addedand the second wife would be the fa-vorite until a third wife was added, andso forth. During the heat of competi-tion with Angela, I prayed that Donwould find a third woman. Part of mewanted to put an end to Angela's "fa-vorite woman" status, hoping also thatfinally she and I would become allies,shattering the tensions between us.

When I attempted to raise my anxi-eties about favoritism with Don, he toldme that of course I was still his favor-ite. I didn't believe him for a second.Nonetheless I knew that he was doingwhat every African polygynist does—keeping the peace by telling each wifejust what she wants to hear. While Ididn't dare ask him such questions infront of Angela, my presumption wasthat with both of us present, he'd saywe were both his favorites. Moreover,I was certain that if she asked him inprivate, she'd be told that she was the

favorite.Now, I could wallow in jealous anxi-

ety, sensing deep inside that she's re-ally the favorite or like the African co-wives advised, I could put it aside andrealize I still had my place in the rela-tionship and not fret about being dis-placed. A man I met in Nairobi told mea story that gave me hope for findingthat sense of being special as the firstwife. His brother grew close to a fe-male co-worker and felt compelled toadd her as his second wife. Initially hisconnection to her was very strong,though after several years, he realizedthat he really loved his first wife muchmore than the second. Now, in retro-spect, he wishes that he'd never mar-ried the second, and if he hadn't alreadyhad a child with her, he'd readily dis-solve their union!

Being an American, I've hadto face that what matters

most to me is the experienceof relationship.

Despite the latter wives' indifferenceto favoritism, co-wife competition canbe a serious problem amongst polygy-nous Africans. A regional newspaperin Kenya ran a story about two co-wiveswho had gotten into such a bad fightthat they both ended up in the hospital.Apparently one had so dominated theirhusband's time that the other one hadn'tseen him for four nights. In retributionshe attacked her co-wife with kitchenpots. The fight escalated when the otherwife attacked with a poultry knife, caus-ing both to need medical attention!

Ideally, a woman wants her co-wifeto help with domestic chores and to bea loving mother to her children. Oftenco-wives provide "mothering insur-ance" for each other in that if one wereto die, the others) would take respon-sibility for raising her children. Whenco-wives don't have a positive relation-ship with each other, there is much anxi-ety about the fate of their children. Onewoman I was told about had refused tomarry one of her deceased husband'sbrothers (a typical practice in Africawhich anthropologist's refer to as the

levirate), but instead became the sec-ond wife to a man of her choosing. Thisman's first wife was so angry her hus-band had expanded their marriage thatin retribution refused to recognize herco-wife. As a result, if anything wereto happen to this second wife, her chil-dren would be doomed in that theirmother had both severed relations withtheir father's family plus had failed todevelop a positive relationship with herco-wife!

While many rural co-wives (and theirhusband) live cooperatively in the samecompound and share everything fromchild raising to tasks related to cook-ing, farming and fishing, many urbanco-wives don't. For them, marriagemay be more a status than an experi-ence. Their fellow co-wives may livein distant cities and they may visit withtheir husbands very intermittently.While they may find value in the statusof being a married woman, in terms ofbeing a recipient of their husband'swealth and being a member of his fam-ily, they may also enjoy the freedom ofhaving asocial life apart from his.

Initially, this was very difficult for meto understand in that so much of beingin a relationship for me involves relat-ing to my partner. If we can't talk,share, cuddle and adventure through lifetogether, why call it a relationship? MyAfrican friends, meanwhile, could notunderstand our American need for suchconstant reassurance of love, commit-ment and intimacy. They would see itas odd that American husbands andwives show affection in public. In Af-rica, a wife would feel disrespected ifher husband kissed or hugged her out-side of their home!

When I left Africa, I burst into tearswhen my plane landed in Amsterdamand I saw a couple embracing in the air-port. It was the first time in months thatI had seen such a public display of af-fection and suddenly I felt very alone.While in Africa I had very much takenon the status of a co-wife in a polygy-nous marriage who happened to be apartfrom her husband. Now in the West, 1was quickly triggered into a powerfulneed to feel a "real" connection to mypartner.

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