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Question: Why is a man allowed to have more than one wife in Islam? i.e.
why is polygamy allowed in Islam? Answer: Polygamy means
a system of marriage whereby one person has more than one
spouse. Polygamy can be of two types. One is polygyny where
a man marries more than one woman, and the other is polyandry,
where a woman marries more than one man. In Islam, limited
polygyny is permitted; whereas polyandry is completely prohibited.
The Qur’an is the only religious
book, on the face of this earth, that contains the phrase
‘marry only one’. There is no other religious book that
instructs men to have only one wife. In none of the other
religious scriptures, whether it be the Vedas, the Ramayan,
the Mahabharat, the Geeta, the Talmud or the Bible does
one find a restriction on the number of wives. According
to these scriptures one can marry as many as one wishes.
It was only later, that the Hindu priests and the Christian
Church restricted the number of wives to one. Many Hindu religious personalities, according to their scriptures,
had multiple wives. King Dashrat, the father of Rama, had
more than one wife. Krishna had several wives. In earlier times, Christian men were permitted as many wives
as they wished, since the Bible puts no restriction on the
number of wives. It was only a few centuries ago that the
Church restricted the number of wives to one. Polygyny is permitted in Judaism.
According to Talmudic law, Abraham had three wives, and
Solomon had hundreds of wives. The practice of polygyny
continued till Rabbi Gershom ben Yehudah (960 C.E to 1030
C.E) issued an edict against it. The Jewish Sephardic communities
living in Muslim countries continued the practice till as
late as 1950, until an Act of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel
extended the ban on marrying more than one wife.
The report of the ‘Committee of The Status of Woman in Islam’,
published in 1975 mentions on page numbers 66 and 67 that
the percentage of polygamous marriages between the years
1951 and 1961 was 5.06% among the Hindus and only 4.31%
among the Muslims. According to Indian law only Muslim men
are permitted to have more than one wife. It is illegal
for any non-Muslim in India to have more than one wife.
Despite it being illegal, Hindus have more multiple wives
as compared to Muslims. Earlier, there was no restriction
even on Hindu men with respect to the number of wives allowed.
It was only in 1954, when the Hindu Marriage Act was passed
that it became illegal for a Hindu to have more than one
wife. At present it is the Indian Law that restricts a Hindu
man from having more than one wife and not the Hindu scriptures.
Let us now analyse why Islam
allows a man to have more than one wife.
As I mentioned earlier, Qur’an is the only religious book on
the face of the earth that says ‘marry only one’. The context
of this phrase is the following verse from Surah Nisa of
the Glorious Qur’an: "Marry women of your choice, two, or three, or four; but
if ye fear that ye shall not be able to deal justly (with
them), then only one."
[Al-Qur’an 4:3] Before the Qur’an was revealed, there was no upper limit for
polygyny and many men had scores of wives, some even hundreds.
Islam put an upper limit of four wives. Islam gives a man
permission to marry two, three or four women, only on the
condition that he deals justly with them. In the same chapter i.e. Surah Nisa verse 129 says: "Ye are never able to be fair and just as between women...."
[Al-Qur’an 4:129] Therefore polygyny is not a rule but an exception. Many people
are under the misconception that it is compulsory for a
Muslim man to have more than one wife. Broadly, Islam has five categories of Do’s and Don’ts:
i.
‘Fard’ i.e. compulsory or obligatory
ii.
‘Mustahab’ i.e. recommended or encouraged
iii.
‘Mubah’ i.e. permissible or allowed
iv.
‘Makruh’ i.e. not recommended or discouraged
v.
‘Haraam’ i.e. prohibited or forbidden Polygyny falls in the middle
category of things that are permissible. It cannot be said
that a Muslim who has two, three or four wives is a better
Muslim as compared to a Muslim who has only one wife.
By nature males and females are born in approximately the same
ratio. A female child has more immunity than a male child.
A female child can fight the germs and diseases better than
the male child. For this reason, during the pediatric age
itself there are more deaths among males as compared to
the females. During wars, there are more
men killed as compared to women. More men die due to accidents
and diseases than women. The average life span of females
is more than that of males, and at any given time one finds
more widows in the world than widowers.
India is one of
the few countries, along with the other neighbouring countries,
in which the female population is less than the male population.
The reason lies in the high rate of female infanticide in
India, and the fact that more than one million female foetuses
are aborted every year in this country, after they are identified
as females. If this evil practice is stopped, then India
too will have more females as compared to males.
In the USA, women
outnumber men by 7.8 million. New York alone has one million
more females as compared to the number of males, and of
the male population of New York one-third are gays i.e sodomites.
The U.S.A as a whole has more than twenty-five million gays.
This means that these people do not wish to marry women.
Great Britain has four million more females as compared
to males. Germany has five million more females as compared
to males. Russia has nine million more females than males.
God alone knows how many million more females there are
in the whole world as compared to males.
Even if every man got married to one woman, there would still
be more than thirty million females in U.S.A who would not
be able to get husbands (considering that America has twenty
five million gays). There would be more than four million
females in Great Britain, 5 million females in Germany and
nine million females in Russia alone who would not be able
to find a husband. Suppose my sister happens to be one of the unmarried women
living in USA, or suppose your sister happens to be one
of the unmarried women in USA. The only two options remaining
for her are that she either marries a man who already has
a wife or becomes public property. There is no other option.
All those who are modest will opt for the first. In Western society, it is common for a man to have mistresses
and/or multiple extra-marital affairs, in which case, the
woman leads a disgraceful, unprotected life. The same society,
however, cannot accept a man having more than one wife,
in which women retain their honourable, dignified position
in society and lead a protected life. Thus the only two options before a woman who cannot find a husband is to marry a married man or to become public property. Islam prefers giving women the honourable position by permitting the first option and disallowing the second. There are several other reasons, why Islam has permitted limited polygyny, but it is mainly to protect the modesty of women. |