The Polygamist

Saving Menzie, in The Polygamist, a story/series on Netflix. Book by Sue Nyathi

It is perhaps ironic that after much rumination about the indelible Netflix production “The Polygamist” in which three, maybe four, women suffer the indignities of being married or almost married to a man (the same man) whose heart, i.e. sensitivity and compassion, seems completely checked out, my concern has landed mostly on the two young men of the story, Menzie and Freedom; which I consider part of the genius of this story, and of the writer.  How are we to raise our young men not to become Jonas, the too familiar villain/monster of this story?

As women, our battle against sexism has been uphill for at least six thousand years. There are still debates in some countries about whether we can keep our own clitoris. Oddly, I know we will survive our oppression and go on to raise our daughters and our sons (and grandsons) to be worthy of this great Earth on which they may flower naturally, like any other creation.  I do not despair that insensitive and ignorant people make laws that, for instance, ban kissing.  Though not weapons.  If our world survives, as it might not, for an eternity of reasons, it will be one in which there will be an honored place for all of us; uniqueness will be prized.  Difference celebrated and enjoyed!

Those of us who can, move into this world now! 

I see a beginning of this as two of the wives who’ve spent (wasted) much time fighting each other sit together at Jonas’s funeral.  That is the truth of it, as women naturally rise from the depths of indignity male rule has designated for us, look at each other as sister-sufferers, and drop the animosity that for so long has held us back.

The earth is burning.  It is because (primarily) male greed has sucked the blood of the Mother and burned it for dubious, surely insufficient, reasons.  No more water, the fire next time. It is simply astonishing how the riddles of prophets are coming into focus. The meek shall inherit the earth.  Meekness. Doesn’t that sound like most of us, for centuries? And so on. ~aw