9nice & Toni Payne

There’s a lot of wisdom to the saying that the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree. Or like father like son. So I was surprised to read what Toni Payne, a lady who was married to 9nice, a recording artist who was born and raised in a polygamous home with five wives and nine children said in an interview about the breakup of her marriage, her husband’s new child with another woman and her husband’s family. Below is an excerpt.

Q: What was ur reaction to the twins news when you heard it? Were u angry? Did u call him to ask about that news of a woman having a child for him?

 A: Yes I was understandably angry because from day 1 he knows I don’t want polygamy for my children if I can avoid it and also cos I felt he shud have divorced me first and married her before engaging in such. Like what example is he setting for his son? Lastly I felt if he would impregnate anyone it should not be the woman who broke up our home.

My question to this very intelligent girl who from what I have heard her do in the music business I admire is, “If a man’s father had five wives and he grew up watching his father and learning what it means to be a man from his polygamous father, why would you think he could be monogamous? Where would he learn that from? Even if he tried, he probably couldn’t pull it off because that’s not how he was raised.  And to top it all, he is a recording artist and we all know that male recording artists often have scores of female admirers and groupies trailing them everywhere, so a young virile male recording artist will have wandering eyes syndrome and cannot be faithful to his partner or be monogamous unless he has God in his life big-time.

I tell ya, girls slay me with their academic and business brilliance but dumbness when it comes to matters of the heart. Another thing is women can evaluate a family and say; these are not the kind of people I want to be involved with, but say their spouse who comes from that same family is different. He is not like his family. He is not like his family member at all. Of course he’s not like them in the beginning especially through the rose colored glasses of a woman in love that you're wearing. Marry him and see over time, just how much like them he truly is. A woman’s love for a man doesn’t change who he is at all. It’s best to accept people for who they are. For example, if I marry a man from a polygamous home, I know what I signed up for, which is to be in a polygamous marriage.

I remember years ago, I was approached by this guy who is from a well-known Muslim polygamous family. Luckily for me, not long before the encounter, I had read in psychology book that to a great extent we all repeat the actions of our same gender parents. I quickly began to think about it and noticed many things I did a certain way just because my mother did it that way and even ways I think just because that was my mother’s train of thought and I made concerted efforts to change.

However, for most people, who don’t take the time to develop themselves psychologically, they automatically do what their parents did almost automatically without thinking about it because it’s like second nature since they have seen it modeled in front of them all their lives.

I knew this would be the case with him in time.  Give him a couple of years and soon you’ll be hearing the speech, “You know I’m a Muslim man entitled to four wives and I’m from a polygamous home, I can marry as many wives as I like.” So, I quickly took myself out of the environment. People who knew he liked me were dumbfounded at my actions. Onlookers thought I was crazy, but I knew what I was doing.

I can’t say all sons of polygamous men become polygamous becaus that's not true either, but it’s better to be safe than sorry…

For the full Toni Payne interview, click here