Once upon a time, in our ancestral homesteads of Kigyezi, when a couple struggled to bear children, the whisper of blame rose and inevitably landed on the woman’s head. She was the suspected vessel of barrenness, the silent culprit.
The man, by cultural decree, was deemed fertile by default. His masculinity was beyond question. Only when the winds of fate betrayed him, his wife leaving him,often times after a practice known as “okushenda” remarrying, and quickly cradling another man’s child would doubt creep in.
Then, and only then, would society begin to suspect that the king may indeed have no clothes as per Hans Christian Andersen’s epic, The Emperor’s New Clothes. In some parts of Uganda, specifically Kigyezi, Ankole, and beyond, a quiet cultural innovation was devised to safeguard the man’s honour.
The husband’s brother, in scandalous whispers, even the husband’s father, would be invited to ‘help’ in the noble duty of extending the family lineage. This delicate arrangement, known as “okwarira,” ensured the man’s name was preserved in history, though his seed was not. After all, as Shakespeare asked, what is in a name?
In our cultures, apparently, everything. Indeed, history is not short of great men whose thrones were warmed by heirs they did not sire. Even kings in distant lands, royalty draped in gold, sometimes failed to father children.
King Henry VIII is suspected to have suffered infertility. But like in our hills, arrangements were quietly made, dynasties preserved, and the illusion of invincible manhood upheld. Science, that relentless investigator, has exposed what our grandmothers suspected but dared not say aloud: men, too, can be infertile.
And more alarmingly, the evidence shows that global male fertility has been in decline over the last two decades. Why? The jury is still out, but the suspects are plenty.
Extreme exercise, the kind that turns boys into muscle-sculpted statues but quietly kills their sperm. The cocktail of cigarettes and alcohol that numbs the body but also sabotages reproduction. Recreational drugs that offer fleeting highs but permanent lows in the testicular department. And then there is the environment plastics, toxins, and pollutants that sneak into our bodies and alter the delicate architecture of sperm.
Sometimes, despite the brilliance of modern laboratories, the cause remains unknown. A mystery wrapped in biology. For the man who grew up on tales of indomitable masculinity, this is an uncomfortable truth. The hunter, once certain of his quiver, discovers his arrows are blunt.
But unlike in the days of okwarira, science has armed us with new tools.
In poetic terms, science has become the benevolent brother, the discreet helper who ensures men otherwise doomed to childlessness can father their own children. And so, the untamed monster of male infertility is slowly being caged. What was once a silent curse is now a treatable condition. Couples who would once have turned to cultural compromises can now find solace in clinics and laboratories. Brothers, fellow Old Boys, we must speak of this matter with honesty. Male infertility is not a punishment. It is not witchcraft, as some of our patients come in convinced of who could have even been responsible for the witchcraft. It is not even a failure of masculinity. It is a medical condition, sometimes lifestyle-induced, genetic, and environmental.
Like hypertension, diabetes it can affect anyone, regardless of wealth, status, or charm…should I add cohort? In our youthful days, we were taught to conquer the world. Today, we must also learn to conquer silence. To those who suffer quietly, know that the doors of science are open. To those who still mock, know that the laughter may yet echo back. As a community of men, let us lead with compassion. Let us support the science that is giving hope to thousands of families. And let us remember, in love and humility, that the measure of a man is not merely in his ability to sire, but in his ability to care, to nurture, and to stand by his family whether with one child, 10, or none. In the grand story of life, children are indeed a blessing. But so is truth. And it is only when we face the untamed monster of male infertility with honesty and courage that we shall tame it not just for ourselves, but for generations to come.