[Fwd: ZUMA'S MANY WIVES...]

David Bullard considers taking more wives.

JOHANNESBURG - I'm thinking of taking a couple of extra wives this
year. I got the idea from the president himself and I think it's
brilliant. It's a bit like having different cars. For example, I've
got a double cab bakkie to take garden stuff down to the dump and to
go on fishing trips . I've got my gayboy Mazda MX5 which is great for
zipping around town and going off to choose curtain fabric and I've
got a much more sensible MPV with five comfortable seats and a large
loading bay. That's perfect for going on holiday packed with stuff and
meeting people at the airport.

Currently my first wife drives that as her everyday vehicle but she
may have to drive the bakkie if subsequent wives want to drive the
MPV. Of course, this doesn't include the procession of test cars
delivered to the old homestead, ostensibly to be driven and evaluated.
This week it's an Audi Q7 and unless I misheard the phone message
there should be a Ferrari on the way.

I have always been under the impression that polygamy is illegal in
this country but maybe I was confusing it with bigamy. Obviously it
can't be illegal because the president has just got married again and,
as we know, nobody is above the law in this country. There will be
those who will try to argue that it's a Zulu cultural thing but that
doesn't really convince me. For example, it's a cultural thing for my
lot to ride around on horses hunting foxes but that's not even allowed
in England. And it's a proud South African tradition to drive drunk
but surely that doesn't qualify as a cultural right?

What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander and if President
Zuma can have multiple wives then so should the rest of us be allowed
to should we so choose. The fact that the SA taxpayer may not be
meeting the bills for our second, third and fourth wives may influence
many people's decision to lead a life of polygamy but what the heck.
The great political pundit and restaurant reviewer Justice Malala
often writes about his "lovely wife" when he attempts to describe to
us what he has been blowing his Financial Mail expense account on. I
hadn't thought much about this until this weekend but maybe Justice is
also a polygamist and mentions his "lovely wife" every week to
differentiate her from his other, less lovely, wives. Although I
imagine wives number 2/3/4 would probably get a little miffed at wife
number 1 being referred to as "lovely" while they never warrant a
mention.

This then is the essential difference between multiple cars and
multiple wives. Cars don't get jealous but wives do and it is a
demonstration of his diplomatic mastery that Jacob Zuma has been
through this before and will almost certainly get married a few more
times. Maybe he does it for the wedding presents.
The obvious problem with polygamy (a bit like cars actually) is you're
bound to have a favourite wife. One you want to drag to the marital
bed for some energetic rumpy pumpy on a regular basis. So what do you
do with the others as they sulk in the sewing room, mending the holes
in your leopard skin underpants? Do you promise them the same
treatment at some vague distant date in the future or do you fob them
off with a promise that they will attend the next opening of
parliament? Tiger Woods would probably have a solution for this but he
has more experience at playing 18 holes then the rest of us. For the
average male polygamist it's a problem.

Then imagine what it must be like driving from KZN to Pretoria with
three map reading wives in the car. As all men know, one map reading
wife is bad enough. They have to hold the map upside down because
that's the direction the car is traveling. Which means that they can't
read the street names and that eventually ends in disaster and lots of
yelling. The sat-nav has saved many a marriage, even if it is a
woman's voice telling you where to go. I have programmed mine to speak
in Italian because being told that you're off route and need to do a
U-turn sounds much more erotic in Italian.

Then there's the problem of meals. Which wife cooks the food?
Obviously the hot wife is excused culinary duties because she needs to
preserve her energy for the bedroom but do the three other wives all
prepare a separate dinner and then get upset when you choose one over
the other? Or do they all resign themselves to the fact that "hottie"
is tonight's choice yet again and just get on with preparing the food.
Which means you also need to employ a food taster because with one
happy and three unhappy wives it's only a matter of time before one of
them accidentally adds hemlock to the recipe.

No, I think that after much consideration maybe I won't proceed with
the polygamy plans after all. Forgetting one wedding anniversary is
difficult enough. Can you imagine what it must be like forgetting
five?

*After 24 years as a trader in the global financial markets David
Bullard decided to opt for an easy life and became a journalist. His
iconic "Out to Lunch" column has been running for 15 years and is as
offensive as ever. Not that he gives a damn...