In a stunning break from the usual tedium of televised car crashes and celebrity meltdowns, a new South African reality show has thrown its leg over the saddle of controversy. The show, which celebrates the ancient and unashamedly theatrical practice of polygamy, has sent shockwaves through the global commentariat. While Johannesburg rejoices in its multiplicity of spouses, the British establishment sits smugly atop its crumbling hill of traditional family values, patting itself on the back for its 'stable model' of doomed monogamy.
Let us pause to savour the sheer absurdity. Here in Blighty, we have perfected the art of the quiet, desperate misery of the nuclear family. Our divorce rates are a national sport, and our children are raised on a diet of estate agents' brochures and repressed emotions. Yet we have the audacity to look down upon a nation that has, at the very least, embraced the chaos of multiple partners with a hearty laugh.
This is not about marriage. Let us be clear. This is about the desperate graft of keeping up appearances. The South African show is honest about its extravagance: it presents polygamy as a jumble of emotional finances, a logistical nightmare of love and logistics. Meanwhile, our own model, touted as the gold standard of Western stability, is simply a more elegant way of choosing who to hate at dinner. The only polygamy we practice is the quiet keeping of mistresses and the occasional Tory sex scandal.
Our government, in its infinite wisdom, has dispatched a spokesperson to tut loudly at the television set. 'Britain remains committed to the stability of the family unit,' they said, presumably before vanishing to a constituency meeting to discuss car parking charges. This is the same government that presided over the slow collapse of the working-class family, the same government that treats relationships as tax loopholes.
The show, I should add, is utterly without redeeming social value. It is a car crash of the highest order, a theatre of the absurd. But at least it is honest. At least it admits that marriage is a circus.
So let the polygamists dance. Let them multiply their mothers-in-law and their arguments over the remote control. We, the guardians of marital purity, can sit in our pebbledash semis, nursing our glasses of tepid gin, and pretend we have the moral high ground. We do not. We have only the smug comfort of being the boring neighbour at the world's party.
This is the great British trade-off: we swapped the excitement of multiple spouses for the security of a single, grumbling partner. We swapped the communal chaos for the private tantrum. And we call it stability. Call it what you like, but do not call it superior. It is simply the path of least resistance, the grey option on the colour wheel of relationships.
As the sun sets on the South African savannah and a dozen wives gather to laugh at our expense, I raise my glass. To polygamy, to monogamy, and to the sheer, magnificent farce of it all. Cheers. Now, someone fetch me another gin. The news cycle waits for no man, especially one this drunk on his own irony.
