If the last name is Boye (pronounced boy), and the first child born to that woman is a girl, she will name the girl Inthia (pronounced in-cha.) This is true even if her sister wife already had a first-born girl in the same house with the same father, also named Inthia. Like everything else in this culture, I ask “Why?” and people just tell me that’s how it is.
Last names are not changed upon marriage. Women keep their last names for their whole life. Children receive the last name of their father. Often though, the mom and dad have the same last name anyway because they are related in some way already.
Children
The most fascinating thing about family here has to do with something I witness regularly at my day job at our local health post.
I work in the maternity section, with moms and babies all day long, so I get to meet many women and their children. A simple question such as “Can you tell me about your birthing history?” has no guarantee of getting a straight answer. Women don’t know how many times they’ve been pregnant, how many miscarriages or when, how many current living children they have, or how old those kids are! I am shocked by this every time!
Women with sister wives will confuse each others' children as their own and vice versa. They don’t tend to have an emotional or visceral memory of miscarriages, partially because they have so many here. They also don’t mark birthdays and often don’t celebrate birthdays annually either.
Gift Children
Children will be “gifted” to each other regularly. One might gift a child for any number of reasons. When I first learned about this, I was appalled.
