212 MARRIAGE AND GENDER RELATIONS is his fathers second wife. In Roberts early child whole are unsympathetic to their attempts to have hood, his father had only two wives, both of whom careers, to seek education beyond the B.A., and to Robert called"mother It was not until he was seven practice independent lifestyles frequently associated years old that he began to question his status. When he with modern, professional occupations. At the same was eight years old, he recollects going to school for time, many women feel that men involve themselves awhile with the sons of the first wife. It was not a too frequently with other women (mistresses) while pleasant memory in that his stepbrothers beat him, they expect their wives to remain at home ca ring for made him carry their books to and from school, and the children. There is also the problem of wife beating, forced him to get money from his mother to give to which women have traditionally agreed is the"right them for their own lunches. He finally refused to go to of the husband if they do not perform their duties or that school, which was 10 kilometers away, so he was act properly. Although many professional women are transferred to a school near his home. After fourth opting against marriage, they have not given up on grade, he states that he was forced to go to another pri their desire to have children. For this reason, suc mary school near the home of the fourth wife. While women frequently find themselves in a position of living at her house, which is 15 miles from the home of seeking out a man, married or single, to give them a his mother and the other two wives, who all share the child or to become a father to that child or to one that same compound, Robert complains that he was forced to do many household chores, including cooking Perlez( 1991)reports the views of a Miss cleaning, and tending livestock, at times going with- Makuku, who is a postgraduate student in French at out food from breakfast until dinner. He also disliked Nairobi University and a former schoolteacher. She the fact that when he had friends over to visit, his step- sees herself ten years from now as a single parent mother would say that he wasn't living in the home of wi ith a male companion, but not a husband. She his mother. "It made me feel that I was born some- points out that this is a choice made not only by her where else but was now under the control of another self but by many of her over-30 female friends with person"(Kilbride and Kilbride 1990: 208) occupations ranging from television producers to As an adult, Robert understands that there are professors. For example, many educ ated women a some advantages to polygyny, such as sharing the delaying marriage; more than half of the 16 female orkload, protection from outsiders, helping to care law graduates of Nairobi University in 1980 are still are sick, and preventing childlessness and thus gain- asle. Miss Makuku admonishes that traditionally, for other family members when they or their children an men looked after their women, but today the ing immortality through ones children. Nevertheless, average man contributes to the rent if one is lucky the disadvantages he has experienced personally, while using the rest for mistresses and beer. Accord which he sees as being mainly the result of a lack of ing to Perlez, anecdotal evidence from Kenya sufficient economic resources on the part of his father, abounds concerning professional women who have who married more wives and had more children than been previously married but have left their husband he could support, makes him unfavorable to polygyny because they cannot tolerate the restrictions imposed and what he perceives to be its many problems of jeal- by ousy and conflict over insufficient resources for food tionship of some kind with a man. Miss Makuku clothing, and education. He reports that during times points out that it is difficult to raise a child without of food shortage, each mother looked after only her the financial help of a man. By the age of 35, however, own children rather than sharing with the others, most of her economically self-sufficient, single, while his father tended to"disappear"until the worst female friends have decided to have children even was over. In Robert' s case, we can see the workings of though they are not married. Some choose to have a traditional ideal of being wealthy enough to be a "boss them around"than would an older man. A a o modernized polygyny in that his father did not fit the hild by a younger man because he is less likel polygynist, at least on the scale that he practiced it. ond choice would be to have a child by a married There are indications that two wives would have been man, paradoxically choosing to do one of the very better for all concerned things that has turned them against marriage to ith Ve see here that exclusive monogamy, in Keny MONOGAMY RECONSIDERED in the United States, does not appear to be working very well. There seems to be a tendency for polygyny a very different definite pattern is visible in Kenya to be reinvented as more and more single women have today: professional women rejecting marriage alto- relationships with married men. Perhaps these men gether because many of them feel that men on the will involve themselves in the role of father to their