The World's biggest Family

• Family compound has its own school, playground, carpentry workshops, piggery and poultry farms and a veg garden
• Dinner for 'The World's Biggest Family' is usually 30 chickens, 132lb of potatoes and 220lb of rice

Meet the world’s largest family. If you’ve ever worried about having enough room for a growing brood, spare a thought for Ziona Chana. He has 39 wives, 94 children, 14 daughters-in-law and 33 grandchildren living under the same roof. Home is a 100-room, four-storey house set in the hills of the village of Baktawng in the Indian state of Mizoram. Even then, some of his wives sleep top-to-tail in communal dormitories. Scroll down for more pictures
But Ziona doesn’t appear fazed by the size of his apparently happy family - and doesn’t claim any benefits for their upkeep. Conveniently, Ziona is also head of a sect that allows members to take as many wives as he wants. He 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.

                         Zion Chana and his lovely 39 wives

He 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. I feel like God’s special child. He’s given me so many people to look after,’ he said. Rinkmini, one of Ziona's wives, who is 35, said: ‘We stay around him as he is the most important person in the house. He is the most handsome person in the village.’ 

‘I consider myself a lucky man to be the husband of 39 women and head of the world’s largest family.’ The family is organised with almost military discipline, with the oldest wife Zathiangi, 69, drawing up schedules for her fellow partners to take turns performing household chores such as cleaning, washing and preparing meals. One evening meal can see them pluck 30 chickens, peel 132lb of potatoes and boil up to 220lb of rice.

The compound has its own school, a playground, carpentry workshops, piggery and poultry farms and a vegetable garden big enough to supply the whole family. She said Ziona noticed her on a morning walk in the village 18 years ago and wrote her a letter asking for her hand in marriage. Another of his wives, Huntharnghanki, said the entire family gets along well. The family system is reportedly based on ‘mutual love and respect’. 

                                    Zion Chana's mansion with 100 rooms    

And Ziona, whose polygamous religious sect has 4,000 members, 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 his sons insisted that Ziona, whose grandfather also had many wives, marries the poor women from the village so he can look after them. (DailyMail)