Choiii!! Guys Meet the African king with 100 wives (See Photos)
Abumbi II, the 11th fon, or king, of
Bafut, Cameroon, has close to 100 wives. They weren’t all his to start
with. According to local tradition, when a fon dies, his successor
inherits all his wives and then marries his own queens. He inherited 72
of the women from his late father. He has also taken on over 500 children from all of his wives.
“The queens have a great role to play in the fondom,” notes Prince Nickson, also of Bafut, noting that it is up to these women behind the man to shape him in his kingly role.
“Behind every successful man must be a very successful, staunch woman,” says Abumbi’s third wife, Queen Constance.
“Our tradition has it that when you are
king, the elderly wives remain to hand down the tradition to the younger
wives, and also to teach the king the tradition because the king had
been a prince, not a king.”
Despite the fact that polygamy is legal in Cameroon, the data shows
that there are far fewer polygamous marriages across the African
continent. The practice is being challenged by changing values, the
spread of the Christian faith, the growing appeal of the western way of
life but also the rising costs of having large families. It is against
this backdrop that Cameroon’s traditional rulers must walk the fine line
between two often conflicting cultures.
“During colonialism other values came
in, of governance, different from the traditional values we had and
therefore there is this constant conflict between the traditional values
and modern western values,” admits Fon Abumbi II, who has ruled Bafut,
the largest fondom in the region, for 47 years.
Some of the king’s wives |
“I understand that we might be quick to
judge the lifestyle of the kings, but just like in the United Kingdom,
African kingdoms and kings are bound to a rich culture and history.
(Practices) like inheritance of all your father’s wives is nothing but a
moral obligation.”
On meeting the queens of Fon Ndofua
Zofia II of Babungo — one of Cameroon’s youngest traditional rulers —
Methu CNN correspondent said:
“All his young wives, forced on him by tradition, spoke fluent English in a French-speaking region and were great marketers.”
It is this seeming contradiction that makes life in the fondom
fascinating and confusing. Are they stuck in the past or keeping pace
with the present? Fon Zofoa III doesn’t think you have to choose. He may
have “inherited” 72 wives and more than 500 children after his father’s
death, but he considers himself a very modern king.
His palace |
“To run a kingdom nowadays in this era,
you must be educated because things are moving very fast. Like they used
to say, education is light, ignorance is darkness.”
Source: CNN
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