Effects of Polygamy
The situation in polygamous home will not only
have effects on the child’s totality but also affect the mother and the
entire household. One argument against polygamy is that it is more
likely to present harmful effects, especially towards women and
children, than monogamy. There are several studies that appear to
support this position. For example, women in polygamous marriages are at
higher risk of low self-esteem, as well as depression, than women in
non-polygamous relationships (Al-Krenawi, 2002; Slonim-Nevo and
Al-Krenawi 2006). Other studies show that these women are also enjoying
less marital satisfaction and more problematic mother-child
relationships (Al-Krenawi and Slonim-Nevo, 2008). In addition, further
studies demonstrate that women in polygamous marriages are especially
vulnerable to depression after becoming pregnant, as their husbands
become more likely to turn their attention to their other wives (Fatoye,
2004). Women in polygamous marriages are typically subservient to their
husbands who hold their wives primarily responsible for child-bearing
(Gher, 2008). These women are often unable to exercise any control over
the addition of new wives by their husbands, contributing to feelings of
powerlessness and emotional abuse (Cook 2007; Hassouneh-Phillips 2001).
Women may also lack control over their ability to seek employment, as
several studies have found that only a small fraction of women in
polygamous marriages work outside the home (AI-Krenawi 2000; Elbedour,
2000; Peterson 1999) .Furthermore, women in polygamous marriages have
also been found to be at a greater risk of sexual diseases, including
AIDS. Thus, women were at greater risk from men with three or more wives
both as their wives and as extramarital sexual partners than from men
with one or two wives (Mitsunaga, 2005).
Studies have also found that
children from polygamous families may be at a greater risk of several
harmful effects. For example, there is ‘considerable research that
children of polygamous families experience a higher incidence of marital
conflict, family violence, and family disruptions than do children of
monogamous families’ (Elbedour, 2002).Moreover, children from polygamous
marriages are at a greater risk of both behavioural and developmental
problems (Elbedour, 2003). There is also some evidence that young women
from polygamous families perform less well in school than those in
monogamous families (Elbedour, et al 2000). In addition, the Utah
Supreme Court has recently stated that polygamy ‘often coincides with
crimes targeting women and children including incest, sexual assault,
statutory rape, and failure to pay child support’ (Strasser 2008).
According to Olley (2004), polygamy has also been linked to several
negative effects regarding men. For example, some studies have shown
that men are more likely to suffer from alcoholism which is thought, in
turn, to perhaps arise from psychological problems with men from
polygamous families. Additionally, men in polygamous marriages are also
more likely to fall below men in monogamous marriages in terms of
educational attainment (Al-Krenawi and Lightman 2000).This body of
evidence makes clear that polygamy is linked to an increased likelihood
of several harmful effects. These effects impact upon all members of a
polygamous family, although women are at the greatest risk.
Concept of Behaviour Pattern
Behaviour pattern can be defined as a
dynamic and organized set of characteristics possessed by a person that
uniquely influences his/her cognition, motivations, and behaviour in
various situations (Ryckman, 2004). The two major behaviour patterns are
Type A and Type B. Melgosa (1996) is of the view that while Types A and
B are the major personality types, an individual could have a
combination of both types of personality characteristics in any number
of ways.
The Type A is a set of overt behavioural responses to life
or challenges of the environmental variables more often aggravated by
situations which constitute significant changes in man’s life (Rosenman
& Chesney, 1982). According to Rosenman (1986), individuals
exhibiting the type A pattern are characterized by impatience, a chronic
sense of time urgency, enhanced competitiveness, aggressive drive and
often some hostility. The relative absence of Type A characteristics
defines the Type B behaviour pattern (TBBP. According to Friedman
(1996). Howard, Cunningham, & Rechnitzer, (1977); and Rosenman &
Chesney (1982), Type A individuals are characterized by competitive,
achievement striving, chronic sense of time urgency, impatience with
delays or slowness of others, and a high degree of aggressiveness and
hostile tendency while Type B individuals are more relaxed, easy-going,
less assertive but by no means timid.
Rosenman & Friedman (1974)
therefore defined Type A behaviour pattern to mean any person who is
aggressively involved in a chronic incessant struggle to achieve more
and more in less time. Akinnusi (1995) stressed that Type A
personalities exhibit behavioural features such as fast driving ambition
and time consciousness in contrast to the slower moving, less
aggressive and more easygoing individual typified as Type B
personalities. On the other hand, the Type B individual has a behaviour
pattern in which the person is easy-going, confident and generally
pleasant and unaggressive.
Rosenman (1978) identified some expressive
aspects of Type A person which include: walking briskly, alert face,
very alive eyes, possibly tense teeth clenching, jaw-grinding facial
set, smile is a literal extension not an oval, laugh is rarely a belly
laugh, looks at others unflinchingly in the eye, sit on edge of a chair,
hard gesture with fist or pointed finger, may squirm or move about with
impatience, explosive and accelerating speech, few mid-sentence pauses,
never worries, rarely whispers, often hostility around the eyes, tense
speech; clipped words, firm handshake, loud and/or vigorous voice and
general expression of vigour.
Four main characteristics of Type A
behaviour pattern have been identified by Rosenman and Friedman (1974).
The first is a sense of time urgency. This is what the authors viewed as
the most significant trait of Type A. It is a modem disease - a hurry
sickness. He wants to achieve or get involved in many activities at the
same time. The authors noted that even it by some miracle, time could be
stretched adequately just once for his activities, the Type A man still
would not be satisfied. He would then seek to stretch the time a
second, third or fourth time.
The fundamental sickness of Type A
subject consists of his peculiar failure to perceive, or perhaps worse,
to accept the simple fact that a man’s time can be exhausted by
activities. As a consequence, he never ceases trying to shift more and
more events into his constantly shrinking reserves of time (Yahaya,
1998).
