Meet the co-wives of Uganda with an extraordinary bond

When Dorothy Nankinga and Milly Nazziwa smile, one might think they are sisters. The way their cheeks widen and the bright gums show up is a resemblance of two born from the same womb.

Well, there is something unique about them that perhaps justifies the myth that when two are so close and live together for so long, their features magically diffuse into each other.

Dorothy and Milly are extraordinary co-widows, who are popular in Kireku, a remote, dusty, but commercially active village in Wakiso district, central Uganda.

They amaze the locals with how they have blended so well that everyone knows them as sisters. In many communities, co-widows or co-wives are like oil and water; they don’t see eye to eye. 

Some even attempt to poison one another or their children. The departure of the husband further worsens the conflicts, and the fight over property intensifies. In some cases, the older wife gangs up with her children to assault and evict the younger one.

But in Dorothy and Milly’s coexistence, one sees the sunshine that never dims and proves that co-wives or co-widows can live in harmony if they want to. The two are among the four co-widows of their husband, who died in 2019. Milly is the second and Dorothy the fourth.

Their husband's death brought a rift in the polygamous home. The first and the third wife lived on a parcel of land in another village, Bweyogerere, in the same district, while the two settled on a plot that he had bought through a joint contribution. He worked as a mechanic in Kampala, Uganda’s capital, with Milly running a motor spare parts business alongside him.

Milly is a trained nurse, but her husband convinced her to leave work to manage the business. Together they raised the funds to buy the plot in Kireku and built 24 rental houses. He then asked her to stop the business to manage the rentals. She left the capital city and he got the opportunity to find another wife.

“He didn’t consult me before he married, but I knew he had another wife. You just know without being told,” she says.

In 2009, he asked Milly if he could bring Dorothy home because he was doing badly financially due to medical complications. He had a heart problem that later killed him. He had become frail and could no longer work to sustain them.

Milly agreed and settled Dorothy in one of the rental houses behind the main family house where she lives. She took care of her. At the time, Dorothy only had one child.

Later, she had two more and Milly says she accompanied her to the antenatal and postnatal care clinics. During delivery, Milly, a mother of two, was there with Dorothy. 

“Milly is the best of the best. She has taken care of me throughout the years. She took the children to the hospital when they were sick. When I am sick, she takes care of me. When she is sick, I take care of her,” confirms Dorothy.

“In fact, my youngest daughter knows her as her mother. She doesn’t live in my house. She is in primary school. She only comes to greet me. It doesn’t bother me. She has been in her life since she was born. No doubt, she is her mother,” adds Dorothy.

Also read: My sister, my co-wife

I ask Milly to describe her relationship with Dorothy. “I love her like my husband loved me. I loved my husband very much and there is no way I can mistreat the people my husband loved. Her children are my children and the children know that. They know each other as brothers and sisters and not half-siblings,” she responds.

Milly’s two children are in college, while Dorothy’s three are in secondary and primary school. They say they are the best of friends and the children have followed suit. Whenever they call from school, they must speak to both of them.

Their paternal families are aware of their bond and whenever they need something from either, they call any of them. In the community, they say the locals know they can reach one through the other.

But they are unlike their co-widows’ families. When their husband died, the other two co-widows and their children started fighting over property. They sold all the land except where they lived and sought to do the same at Kireku. Milly and Dorothy sought the intervention of the local council chairperson and retained the land and other property.

Milly occupies one of the rooms where she runs a utensils business. To help her co-widow manage her basic needs, in 2020, she enabled her to start her own shoe business by granting her UGX1 million (Sh38,114) and a room from the rental houses. The rates for the rentals range from UGX90,000 (KSh3,430) to UGX150,000 (KSh5,717).

Although Milly is the custodian of the income, they never spend it without consulting one another. They agree on whose school fees to clear or how much they should spend on shopping when going to visit the children or when attending a relative's funeral.

“We have this bond that when we wrong each other, we talk out our grievances with laughter. We never shout at each other. I'll tell Milly, ‘You know what you said is not good’ and we laugh about it. We are just those sisters. We are the best of the best friends,” Dorothy says.

“We are bringing up our children with so much love. What else can we offer them?  We are teaching them how to coexist and love one another. We share secrets that we cannot share with our own siblings,” adds Milly.

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