This Zimbabwean man has 16 wives and 151 kids and he still wants more

He’s considered the world’s most-fertile dad and with good reason. Misheck Nyandoro has fathered 151 children with 16 wives, and he has no intention of stopping.

The 66-year-old Zimbabwean wed his first wife back in 1983 and now plans to marry his 17th wife. “What I'm doing here is completing my project – a polygamy project I started in 1983 and don't intend to stop until death takes me away,” he says.

Misheck, a retired war veteran, temporarily paused his project after his last marriage in 2015 because “the economy had become unfriendly”. Now the country’s financial situation has improved, he says, he plans to walk down the aisle again next month. “Had it not been for temporary economic hardships, the story would have been different,” he says. “Maybe I’d have close to 30 wives by now and 200-plus children.”

Misheck’s eldest child is 37, but he doesn’t remember the year his other children were born or their ages. Of his 151 children, 50 are in different schools across Zimbabwean cities, including Harare and Mutare.

Having 16 wives and so many kids is challenging, he admits, but the Nyandoro household runs like clockwork. Misheck gets by as a subsistence farmer and lives off the land with his large family, who treat him like a king.

“Every wife cooks her best every day because the rule is I throw away what is not tasty,” he says. No one would blame any of his wives for reading him the riot act for returning their food, but the polygamist says the women are all too happy to please him. “Rejected food should make her cook better next time.”

To keep his wives happy, he keeps a list to make sure he spends time with all of them. “I give conjugal rights to an average of four wives a night and I do the roster personally. I go to the targeted bedrooms one by one. They are all catered for and happy,” he says.

Polygamy is common in Zimbabwe, but Misheck and his many wives have caused a stir because people have started viewing polygamy differently.

“It has deep cultural roots,” says Zimbabwean journalist Silence Charumbira. “A man with multiple wives was often rich. That same man would also brag of his prowess in the bedroom, it somewhat gave the man clout.”

However, polygamous men are now sometimes viewed as “womanisers and perverts”, he says. “There is so much more to marriage than sex and women must be equal partners in marriage.”

Sources: The Herald, Mail Online, thesun.co.uk