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Why Luos Married(s) Many Wives: Understanding Polygamy in African Society — Luo People to be Precise.
The origin of independent/nativistic churches in Africa came as a result of many issues, including the lack of leadership opportunities for native Africans in the Western-styled missionary churches. One of the most prominent conflicts between Christianity and basic Luo traditional tenets was tied around cultural practices like initiation, age-set system, and marriage.
In marriage, the biggest conflict rose from the predominant practice in Luo polygamous marriage and the Christian-championed monogamy. While Christian missionaries in good faith or in their role as explorers for their British colonial masters preached the usefulness and importance of monogamy, Luo people who viewed these missionaries as people of the cloth authority, joka tend loch nanga, saw it as a threat to their culture from colonial stooges. Even today in Kenya, church leaders are still referred to as ‘men of cloth’ which is rooted in the coming of clothed Christian missionaries advanced by the British imperial colonialism as explorers and informers.
The notable independent churches were formed to give spiritual understanding that resonated with the Luo people arousing a sense of identity amongst the followers while also attempting to address immediate community needs like…
