I See Polygamy as Evolution – Joke Silva

While many people in our society today frown at polygamy, veteran actress, Joke Silva is all for it as she explains to GBUBEMI GOD’S COVENANT SNR.

She first came to limelight in that short but intense television soap, ‘Mind Bending’ that really bent the mind of viewers in the 1980s and left no one in doubt that a local Liz Taylor has been discovered on the home front; and her successive conquest thereafter proved everyone right as rain.

Since the debut of the MTN Project Fame, she has been here, there, and everywhere, working both behind and on the scene. Revolving like roulette in her enchanting elegance, Joke Silva is every act you see on television, in the movies, and in her personae.

Seeing that everything about her has made news everywhere, our correspondent probed her mind on the issue of serial divorces and immorality in Pentecostal age Nigeria and, of course, her inner thoughts came pouring out.

Hear the thoughts of Ajoke Mabel Arinola Silval-Jacobs … live:

“If you’re talking about serial divorces and immorality in this age, it would appear that we’re coming from polygamy into serial monogamy, and I see this trend as another aspect of evolution.

“Polygamy for a lot of people didn’t work out; this can be very harsh on women and children and this is very much a part of our society. There was a time when we didn’t have serial monogamy neither did we have polygamy. So what we have on the surface was monogamy, but if you go down to the family, you’ll find the man has several women, you know; he even has children from different women, so really there was a kind of polygamy being practiced, but which wasn’t overt as we had in the traditional way.

“Now is that not what we would call serial polygamy, and serial monogamy? Because people are now getting to the point where they say, why do I have to go ahead and put up a front and say, all is well in my marriage, while it’s not? There’s only so much I can take, and I really am not prepared to continue with this condition. And so they leave the marriage, and if they’re lucky, they get married again.”

 

 

Where do you lay the cause then?

“I cannot honestly blame any couple who decide that they cannot live together, because in the Holy Bible, there’re some areas that some of us pretend not to see, but they’re all there. There’s an area there that says, if a man does not perform his conjugal duty, the woman has every right to leave him. It’s in the Bible, people just refuse to see that. And there’s an area in the law that says if a woman has been unfaithful to her husband the man has every right to leave. It’s all there.”

What’s your conception of life?

“I think life is a school; that’s the way I can put it. It’s a school where we all are continually learning; from the day you’re born to the day you die, we’re learning. Then you’re required to bring whatever you’ve learnt or are learning to bear, to reflect and fine-tune everything you do. Also, you are required to or expected to bring your experiences to bear on everything you see, everything you pass through in life, so that  that help you to be able to manoeuvre. I am seriously learning every day.”

To the young people?

“In the area of education, just be diligent, and don’t expect that at the end of the day, that there’s a job out there waiting for you. If it’s possible for you and a group of others to get together and start something, do so.”