When is three, or four; a crowd in a marriage?

JAKARTA (JP): Before Hercules and Xena were broadcast on local television, no one ever made a fuss about my name. But things changed when the series appeared on TV several years ago.

I suddenly became an evil Greek goddess and step-mother to my friends and people who just met me.

People would say to me, "Where's Hercules?" or "Oooh, bad, bad goddess!" And I just smiled or rolled my eyes.

Sometimes I would reply, "Well, I don't blame her. Zeus isn't the most loyal husband on the planet (or in heaven)."

I am no feminist. It is just that growing up in a family where polygamy was practiced allowed me to empathize with Zeus' wife.

My father is monogamous, well at least as far as we know. It was my late grandfather from my mother's side who was a polygamist.

He had three wives, and a total of 11 children from them. Five from each of his first two wives, and one from his third wife.

My mother is the first child from the first wife, or my grandmother, who has been living with us ever since my mother married my father.

Until he passed away over a decade ago, my grandfather, who was an Army officer, lived with his second wife while his third lived in another house, but in the same city as us.

When I was a little, the polygamy thing never bothered me. It was just a bit confusing because I had four grandmothers while my friends only had two.

But then my mother explained to me that in Islam, men are allowed to have up to four wives.

Later on, having almost a dozen uncles and aunts became quite a kick for me. There were lots of weddings to go to, I had a bunch of cute little cousins and a pocketful of money on the post-fasting month holiday of Lebaran.

The funny thing is the physical resemblance between my grandfather's children and grandchildren. Some of them really look alike and have similar voices.

I look more like my step-aunt from my grandfather's second wife than my own parents, which makes some people conclude that I was adopted.

Another thing is the way the grandchildren refer to our grandmothers. It is based on where they live.

However, as I grew up, it was not that funny anymore. I began to see the pain and consequences of polygamy.

If only my grandfather had been monogamous, he would have been better off financially. But instead, he had to struggle to support his family, leaving a generation with a lack of education and affection.

Only two of his children went to university. My mother married at the age 18 and, together with my father, had to support some of her siblings, as well as my grandmother, who became very bitter after her husband married another wife.

Beside physical resemblances, my uncles and aunts also share psychological ones. The women tend to marry the wrong kind of men, and one has even continued the legacy, becoming the third wife of a businessman twice her age.

Meanwhile, the men are either disloyal to their wives or dominated by them.

There are also what we call the soap opera moments. My grandmother hates the other wives, although she has nothing against their children. So I have to lie whenever I go to visit my step-grandmothers.

The second wife, although penitent now, used to be the typical wicked step-mother.

Funny thing is, she does not know about the third wife, so we have to keep that a secret since she has a heart problem (she does not read The Jakarta Post, so I don't feel guilty).

Her children also found out about it just before my grandfather passed away. Their initial reaction was anger and they treated my youngest aunt badly.

Until my mother had to remind them they are not in the right position to do because their mother herself is the second wife.

There are still many stories, too many to tell, from my experience and also my friend's which show how messed up thing can become from a practice called polygamy.

With those experiences, I feel like I do not understand polygamy at all. For me, love and marriage is a one-on-one game. Three's a crowd, let alone more than three.

Or as my mother put it, God allows polygamy only with conditions, and there are risks to it. If the risk means producing an injured generation that can only recover two generations later, I do not see it as an option in marriage. Whatever the reason is.

-- Hera Diani