Ziona Chana, a man from India, has the largest family in the world.
Ziona Chana, 67, has 39 wives, 94 children, 14 daughters-in-law and 33 grandchildren living under the same roof, in a house of 100 rooms.
Their home is a four-storey house set in the village of Baktwang, state Mizoram, India. Even then, some of his wives sleep top-to-tail in communal dormitories.
Ziona Chana doesn’t appear phased by the size of his apparently happy family and doesn’t claim any benefits for their upkeep.
“I feel like God’s special child. He’s given me so many people to look after,” Ziona Chana said.
“I consider myself a lucky man to be the husband of 39 women and head of the world’s largest family.”
Ziona Chana’s family is organized with almost military discipline, with the oldest wife Zathiangi, 71, drawing up schedules for her fellow partners to take turns performing household chores such as cleaning, washing and preparing meals.
Normally, one evening meal can see them pluck 30 chickens, peel 132 lb (60 kg) of potatoes and boil up to 220 lb (100 kg) of rice.
Ziona Chana’s family has its own school, a playground, carpentry workshops, piggery and poultry farms and a vegetable garden big enough to supply the whole family.
Conveniently, Ziona Chana is also head of a sect that allows members to take as many wives as he wants.
The man even married ten women in one year, when he was at his most prolific, and enjoys his own double bed while his wives have to make do with sharing.
Ziona Chana keeps the youngest women near to his bedroom with the older members of the family sleeping further away, and there is a rotation system for who visits Ziona’s bedroom.
Rinkmini, 35, one of Ziona Chana’s wives, said: “We stay around him as he is the most important person in the house. He is the most handsome person in the village.”
Rinkmini said Ziona Chana noticed her on a morning walk in the village 18 years ago and wrote her a letter asking for her hand in marriage.
Huntharnghanki, another Ziona Chana’s wife said the entire family gets along well. The family system is reportedly based on “mutual love and respect”.
Ziona Chana, whose polygamous religious sect has 4,000 members and whose grandfather also had many wives, says he has not stopped looking for new wives.
“To expand my sect, I am willing to go even to the U.S. to marry,” he said.
One of Ziona Chana’ sons insisted that her father marries the poor women from the village.
