polygamy
9 Jul 2008
Something Borrowed, Something Blue
Image care of The Guardian
Most Muslim women regard polygamy as a last, desperate resort, writes Shakira Hussein
Brides are supposed to cry on their wedding days. Even Western brides, marrying the man of their choice, cry on what is supposed to be the happiest day of their life. And my aunts told me that Pakistani brides would be considered somewhat strange if they didn't cry. "It's not a happy day, is it? Leaving your family and everything you know. Of course you cry."But this bride was different. Her wedding was taking place in an Afghan refugee camp, in northern Pakistan. Even though her face was coated in a heavy layer of make-up, it was possible to see that her expression was frozen in a rictus of fear. Her eyes were blank and seemed not to take in any of the scene before her - the wedding guests, the foreign visitor, the women who sang and laughed in a vain attempt to draw her into the celebration. It occurred to me that she might have been given a drug of some kind to calm her down.
The mother of the bride was nowhere to be seen. And when the other women explained why, they dropped all pretence of celebration. "The girl's mother is in another room, crying. The family is newly arrived from Afghanistan, and they have nothing. They can't afford to feed everyone, so they had to find a husband for their daughter. She is only 16, and she is marrying an old man. He already has a wife his own age, and just a few months ago, he married another young woman. It is not what anyone wants for their daughter, but what can they do? They cannot take care of her themselves, and they cannot find her a husband of her own age."
In peacetime, the mathematics of polygamy does not add up. If there are equal numbers of men and women, then for every man who takes a second wife, another man has no wife at all. That is why breakaway polygamous Morman sects in the United States have taken to leaving excess teenage boys by the side of the highway - to leave the field clear for the older men to take their pick of the women. Polygamy is damaging to lower ranking men, as well as to women, when a few high-ranking studs corral more than their share of the available females.
But wartime leaves communities with an excess of women. In Australian suburbs, there are still maiden aunts who never married because the young men of their generation were killed in World War II. But post-war Australian society was better able to provide for such women than present-day Afghanistan. The early days of Islam, too, were marked by warfare, by the presence of women whose husbands or potential husbands had been killed in the fighting. And war-torn societies are insecure places for unattached women. Better half a husband, or even a quarter of a husband, than destitution. And if the husband is not to your taste, you might prefer not to have him all to yourself.
I understand this. I can see why that terrified young woman's family handed her over to that old man, so that she would be fed, and her share of the family's resources could be distributed among their other needy children. In similar circumstances, I can imagine that most of us might do the same, whatever our views of polygamy.
But most Muslim women regard polygamy in a similar light to the guests at that sad wedding - as a last, desperate resort. Of course, polygamous matches happen in peacetime, as well as during war, although they are much less common. If a first marriage does not produce children, then a second wife may be taken in the hope that she will prove more fortunate.
Polygamy may also be used as an alternative to the form of "serial monogamy" more familiar in Western societies, so that a first wife may retain her status as a married woman once a marriage has broken down and her husband has effectively moved on to a new love. But this violates the injunction for the wives in a polygamous relationship to be treated with equal love and care.
However, the usual justification for polygamy is that it provides women who might otherwise have to fend for themselves with a male protector and breadwinner. This may make sense during times of great social upheaval, when no other form of welfare is available (although I will always remember the blank-eyed terror of that young Afghani woman whenever I hear polygamy justified in these terms). But in a just society, women and girls should be provided for by other means. Many so-called monogamous relationships are of course no such thing, and Muslims are as free to engage in informal polygamy as anyone else.
But institutionalised polygamy assumes that women are in such need of male providers that even a quarter share will do. In contemporary Australian society, women do not need to resort to such means of support. In fact, it seems to be men who need the support of women - need it so badly that one woman is not enough. But that, frankly, is their problem.
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What a balanced, logical and intelligent response.
Thank you Shakira Hussein
Well done. Take that, Keysar.
Thank you, Shakira. You have nailed it - what to do about issues of female attractiveness and desirability are men’s problems, it’s their horniness that has to be controlled, without putting the onus back onto women.
But ‘culture’ almost invariably puts the blame for male desires back onto women, which leads one to suspect that ‘all cultures are equally invalid and inequitable’ and that ‘all cultures are male artifacts’: human creations which reflect the power imbalances in a particular society, and which are not necessarily defensible merely because they form a ‘culture’ - in fact, they should be transformed to recognise the equal rights of women and men.
How to bring ‘cultures’ into the modern world, especially those based on ignorant and demeaning perceptions of women, is a massive but vital task, and wars are being fought over it right now. If successful extension of equal rights to women renders those ‘cultures’ unrecognisable, so be it.
Joe
Why do you think Hillary Clinton stayed with a husband that cheated on her repeatedly?
This idolising of John Howards Australian (western) values misses on the hypocrisy of those same values
SO wars are fought over women’s rights, Joe. That monkey of yours is getting a real spanking man !!
So Hillary’s promise to nuke Iran is a battle for women’s right?
get a grip
Non sequitur, Expat. What has Hillary got to do with anything ?
Wars ? Afghanistan, for one.
Joe
read between the lines, Joe. Make some connections. Comprehension isnt just reading paragraph A and B. You have to make a connection; they taught u that in reading and comprehension 101 surely.
As for the article: THE GRASS IS NT ALWAYS GREENER ON THE OTHER SIDE
"Muslim women are just as free to practice informal polygamy as anyone else."
Not in this country they are not,Shakira.
Do we really want to see the emergence of those cultish families that we hear about in the land of the insane, America, and we don’t hear about in the land of the circumcised (including women) like Afghanistan.
Sad as it may be for those women who have to share a man, as female eunuchs they would’nt really care.
Do we want that here? No say, thankfully there are laws against it.
Like incest.
Oli
what do you call women who trap men into child support?? Certainly not informal polygamy, since Oli’s "nice" laws seem to penalize men, AND enforce formal polygamy.
is that too much of a tangent or is it similar to Oli pulling the incest remark outa his butt?
Play the ball, Expat, not the man.
Joe
Revilo,
I think Shakira did say ‘informal’.
And Expat, I think anthropologists would call a situation of women going from man to man and having children by many of them, ‘serial monogamy’. But ‘trapping’ ? Why shouldn’t men who have kids support them financially ?
Joe
you really need to get out more joe and get a reality check mate.
What man are we talking about; they are a bunch of idiotic words.
DOnt know the dude from a bar of soap
shakira
revilo, by informal polygamy; I mean being in more than one relationship at a time, as happens in in many Australian suburbs among members of all religions and none. I do not condone it but it is not illegal; nor should it be.
Everyone is missing the point.
Women in Australia do not need to marry to get a feed. They can get a job and take care of themselves.
If restrictive cults want to continue their practices after they arrive in Australia, while professing that they are Australian and are upholding Australian values they need to take another look at themselves and of our values and laws.
And while Trad cited many religious leaders who were performing these illegal marriages, he really needs to take check of what country he is living in and report those who are breaking the law to the appropriate authorities.