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When people talk about relationships, they often point fingers at structures—monogamy, polygamy, divorce, single parenting—as if the structure alone determines the success or failure of love. But from my lived experience, one truth has become crystal clear: the real issue is not the format of the relationship. It’s our individual capacity to love, care, and take responsibility—or the lack of it.

The Roots of Polygamy: A Cultural and Social Construct

Polygamy has deep roots in many cultures. In much of Africa, for example, it was not just about romantic relationships or desires—it was a social contract, a way of distributing responsibility, expanding family labour, ensuring lineage, and supporting widows or vulnerable women. In many societies, it was a pragmatic choice rather than a moral one.

Yet today, when people discuss polygamy, they reduce it to a modern lens of competition, jealousy, or male ego. They assume that dysfunction arises because of polygamy. But if you look closer, you’ll see that dysfunction arises from people, not from the structures they choose to enter.

A Family of 23 Siblings: What It Taught Me

I’m the eldest of 23 siblings from my father. No, it wasn’t a picture-perfect family—and I won’t pretend that there weren’t challenges. But here’s the surprising thing: looking back, I can honestly say that I saw more chaos and dysfunction in monogamous couples around me than I saw in my own extended, polygamous family.

Why?

Because we were taught to care.

We were taught to love those we didn’t choose—to be responsible for siblings who had different mothers, who didn’t ask to be born into the same family as us, but who became our kin. We learned to share, to look after one another, and to resolve conflict without exclusion. It was not perfect, but it was rich in life lessons that many monogamous households failed to transmit.

The structure did not matter nearly as much as the emotional intelligence, the values, and the capacity to love and care for others.

If You’re Not Healed, Any Relationship Will Expose It

A relationship is not a healing centre. If you are not emotionally grounded, stable, and healed within yourself, your relationships will expose your wounds—whether you’re in a monogamous marriage, a polygamous one, or living as a single parent.

Relationships magnify our unhealed parts.

If you don’t know how to be with yourself, if you don’t know how to give love, receive love, hold space for others, and take responsibility for your behaviour, the structure won’t save you. You can have one partner or four, and the result will be the same: brokenness projected, love corrupted, and people hurt.

This is why I say, polygamy is not the red flag—unhealed people are.

Beware of Those Who Resent Their Family of Origin

Here’s a lesson few people speak about: pay attention to how someone speaks about their family of origin. While it’s true that some families are deeply dysfunctional or even traumatic, chronic resentment toward one’s parents or siblings is often a sign that healing hasn’t yet occurred.

Why is this important?

Because if someone has not made peace with where they come from, they will struggle to build peace with where they are going. Family is our first training ground in love, care, empathy, and responsibility. If those lessons remain unlearned, the classroom of adult relationships becomes a minefield.

This is not to say that healing is always complete, or that we must have perfect relationships with our families—but there is a big difference between someone who is healing and someone who is still fighting a war they haven’t named.

Conclusion: It’s Not the Format, It’s the Foundation

Whether monogamy or polygamy, marriage or single life, the truth is this: the health of a relationship depends on who you are before you enter it.

Love isn’t about butterflies. It’s about responsibility. It’s about being willing to care for others, especially those you’ve chosen to walk life with.

And caring—true caring—starts with learning how to love those you didn’t choose: your family of origin, your neighbours, your siblings.

If you can do that, you’re training for love. If you can’t, no structure will ever protect you from the mess you bring.