Cameroonian Kings are obliged to abide by the traditions and customs of the stool. In their tradition, when a fon dies, his successor inherits all his wives and then marries his own queens.
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A king can marry 100 wives in Cameroon
According to Fon Abumbi II, Without a culture, you are not a human being, you are an animal. And therefore the chieftaincy institution is the guarantor of our culture
Fon Abumbi II
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Prince Nickson noted ,"The queens have a great role to play behind the man to shape him in his kingly role".
According to Abumbi's third wife, Queen Constance, "Behind every successful man must be a very successful, staunch woman". "Our tradition has it that when you are king, the elderly wives remain to hand down the tradition to the younger wives, and also to teach the king the tradition because the king had been a prince, not a king."
Although, polygamy is legal in Cameroon, people in other African countries have adopted the Western cultures where family plan before they produce babies in order to have enough resources for their basic needs.
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"During colonialism other values came in, of governance, different from the traditional values we had and therefore there is this constant conflict between the traditional values and modern western values," admits Fon Abumbi II, who has ruled Bafut, the largest fondom in the region, for 47 years.
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