Polygamy 411

It is a beautiful feeling to go to bed feeling peaceful and content, and wake up in the morning in a state of happiness, feeling nothing but joy. Polygamy has brought much pain and heartache to my life, but has brought much good as well. It’s been a long tough journey for me, but it’s much, much easier now. I’ve learned many lessons along the way.  I’ve done and said many things to persons (in particular, my husband Alex and his other “wife” Carolinah).  I can only pray that Allah (Great and Glorious is He) has forgiven me for those acts and I won’t repeat them. 

Allah says, “O ye who believe!  If ye fear Allah, He will grant you a Criterion (To judge between right and wrong), remove from you (all) evil (that may afflict) you and forgive you: for Allah is the Lord of grace unbounded)” – Quran 8:29.

What makes me happiest at this stage in my life is that my thoughts are no longer focused on Alex and Carolinah. That is truly a blessing. I used to obsess over her, about the two of them being together and what they were doing.  Now my thoughts of her and the two of them are so much more controlled and don’t rule my life. I make every effort to turn all my attention to Allah. For being able to do that, I truly thank Him.

Most everyone here at polygamy 411 has been more than kind and supportive and for that too I am grateful to Allah. A few times I was disappointed when anyone insinuate I was a poor example of a Muslim or asked how I could do certain bad acts as a Muslim. To that I must remind them that the Prophets are our example, not me. All human beings sin whether Muslim or not, which is why Allah tells us to repent and ask forgiveness of Him again and again. Allah loves to forgive and loves those who seek His forgiveness with all sincerity.  On that note, I’d like to end for now and just say – Allah’s promise is true; after hardship there is relief.

 This is an open house. No need to knock. Just come on in.

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Yes We Can!

This is an open house. No need to knock. Just come on in.

The Constitutional Court hopes that prosecuting men who enter unregistered marriages will help stop polygamy.

The Constitutional Court chief on Sunday threw his weight behind a forthcoming bill to fine or jail men who failed to register their marriages in order to skirt polygamy restrictions.

Mahfud MD said that unregistered marriages, known locally as siri, should be stamped out to protect women and children.

A bill to amend a religious law on marriage is due to be debated in the House of Representatives sometime this year.

“I completely agree with the bill as many people have become victims” of unregistered marriages, Mahfud said. “The children are neglected while [women] are made objects of lust.”

Nasaruddin Umar, director general for Islamic guidance at the Ministry of Religious Affairs, said that the ministry also supported the legislation. He warned that once the bill was passed by the House, all citizens would be required to register their marriages or face legal sanctions.

“No more unregistered marriages,” he said. “All marriages should be legally registered with the state.”

Nasaruddin said the ministry had reviewed numerous cases of men entering into unregistered unions for their own benefit, including under the guise of “avoiding committing sin” through adultery. He also said that some men remarried without the consent of their first wives, which violated polygamy laws.

“In Islam, marriage is very sacred and holy. No man is allowed to fool around with it,” Nasaruddin said.

The Religious Affairs Ministry started drafting the bill three years ago with the aim of protecting women and children. “The draft is now with the State Secretariat and is ready to be handed to the president for review,” Nasaruddin said.

Article 143 of the bill states that “anyone who intentionally conducts a marriage without a marriage registrar faces a maximum fine of Rp 6 million [$642] or six months imprisonment.”

The existing Law No. 1/1974 on Marriage requires people to register their marriages with the appropriate civil registry office. However, there are no penalties for violators.

Nasaruddin said the bill would not ban polygamy, adding that men would still be allowed to marry up to four women so long as they met the legal requirements, which include getting the written consent of their wives.

“However, all four marriages must be registered,” he said.

Ma’ruf Amin, head of the Indonesian Council of Ulema (MUI), said unregistered marriages were permissible in Islam, but could be sinful if they caused problems for the wives or children.

If all the conditions required by Islamic law were met, such as having witnesses and guardians present, he said, then the marriage would be considered valid.

“However, if the marriage creates hardship for other people, such as the husband abandoning his other wives or children, then it is forbidden,” Ma’ruf said.

He acknowledged that some siri marriages resulted in abandoned wives and children, and said that was likely the driving force behind the bill to have all marriages registered.

Ma’ruf said it was up to legislators to determine the country’s civil law and to set out punishments for those who broke it.

“When people conduct siri marriages, it may be legal in accordance with Islam, but they should also be aware of civil law and its sanctions,” he said.

Credit for the above info: Jakarta Globe, Feb. 15, 2010, by Anita Rachman & Muninggar Sri Saraswati

I think I’ve mentioned before that I’m not one for planning the future, but Alex is.  Since I don’t very much know what is going to happen from day to day, how am I to know what is going to happen years from now? I could be dead in the next few minutes. Planning, of course, is more difficult for parties in polygamous marriages. All the parties must come to an agreement on things – that is if they want to conduct their affairs with mutual consultation as they are directed to do in the Quran.

While on vacation, Alex and I had a conversation about the future. We were relaxing on the balcony of our hotel room. It was a bright, beautiful, hot, tropical day. Alex asked, “Where do you want to live?”  Here we go again; I thought. To refresh your memory, Alex and I had this same conversation quite a few times before. In fact, I wrote a post on it, “We are Polygamous - Where are We Going to Live?”  It felt like déjà vu when he asked me the exact same question again.  I couldn’t believe it. I took a super, long, deep, breath and sighed. I wasn’t in the mood to go through this whole song and dance again. It’s just too exhausting, too draining. I had made everything quite clear to Alex when he and I previously discussed the matter.

Nonetheless, the conversation this particular day went something like this: The first thing I said was, “I need to ask; is Carolinah going with us?”  Alex exclaimed, “I’m asking you where you want to live!”  I said, “Before I can discuss this any further, I need to know if you intend to take Carolinah as well because, if so-I’m not going.”  He said, “Then there’s no need to discuss it any further because I don’t want us to argue.” I proceeded to say, “You could come visit me.”  He said, “Thank you.”

Once again I saw how selfish people can be. Alex wants us to move to another State, as the cost of living is too expensive in the State in which we live.  Alex always wanted him and me to move from the time we got married. I always suspected it was to get me away from my best friend, whom he had feelings of jealousy towards. Before we married, I agreed I’d move wherever Alex wanted to go whenever I were to stop working. The problem is Alex never signed our Islamic contract, making what I had agreed to null and void.  Secondly, the variables had changed. Alex didn’t have another “wife” when I agreed to live anywhere he wanted to. 

I could understand Alex wanting to move very soon; you could only imagine how expensive it gets taking care of two families in a State in which it’s expensive to take care of one family. But that’s not my problem now is it? Did I ask Alex to take on another family? Anyway you look at it, Alex has to take care of me. Even if we divorce, Alex has to take care of me, so it’s not my problem! Maybe I’d have more compassion if he wasn’t “married” to another woman while married to me.

I can’t stop thinking how selfish people can be in relationships.  Has Alex considered what he requested me to do? He wants me to uproot, move away from my Islamic family, my biological family, my familiar surroundings, my comfortable home and everything I know…for what?  He wants me to move to a strange State, where I know no one and know nothing of the area.  Of course Carolinah and I would have separate dwellings. It is a way of life for wives in polygamy in Islam. He’ll continue to divide his time between us-that is marriage on a schedule. Please tell me what I am supposed to do while Alex is laid up in with Carolinah watching television, laughing, happy, and enjoying the good life?  I get extremely angry when I think about it.

Now I understand how couples can stay married and live in separate countries. I hear of couples all the time in which one, for example, live in Egypt and the other the USA. I never could understand the concept, but now it all makes perfectly good sense to me. As we get older, sometimes relationships begin to take on a whole new dimension.

My intention is to stay in the State in which I currently live, where I’ve lived my entire life, near my Islamic family, my biological family, my familiar surroundings, and everything I’ve come to know. I’ll stay married to Alex and he can come visit me whenever he’d like.

Some readers have asked me about my happiness in my marriage.  Living some place that I enjoy make me, Ana, happy. Being around my familiar surroundings and people that I know makes me happy. My intention is to stay right where I am.

This is an open house. No need to knock. Just come on in.

www.polygamy411.com will introduce a new and fun marriage site for you very soon. We hope to debut by April 1, 2010.  Our team here at polygamy 411 is in the process of adding the final touches to the site.

To assure that the marriage site includes all that you would like to receive, we kindly ask you to give us any and all suggestions, recommendations and comments to assist us in making it the best marriage site for you. 

For your convenience you could use the Contact Form (Contact Us) provided at polygamy 411. com or leave a comment on the post page. We value what you have to say. Everything you say is significant and your suggestions are neither too big nor small for us to consider. We look forward to hearing from you, and having you visit our new marriage site real soon. Thank you and stay tuned!

This is an open house. No need to knock. Just come on in.

I stumbled upon a blog from 2006 - ”The Becker-Posner Blog”. The blog’s hosts were Gary Becker, an American economist and recipent of the 1992 Nobel Prize in economics and Richard Posner, a Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago. Becker posed the question: “Should Polygamy be Legal?” and Posner commented. I found some of what he said to be interesting, and have included an except below:

“In polygamous households, the father invests less time in the upbringing of his children, because there are more of them. There is also less reciprocal affection between husband and wife, because they spend less time together. Household goverance under polygamy is bound to be more hierarchical than in monogamous marriage, because the household is larger and the ties of affection weaker; as a result, “agency costs” are higher and so the principal (the husband, as head of the household) has to devise and implement means of supervision that would be unnecessary in a monogamous household. (An additional factor is that women in a polygamous household have a greater incentive to commit adultery since they have less frequent sex with, and affection for, their husband, so the husband has to watch them more carefully to prevent their straying.) This managerial responsibility deflects the husband from more socially productive activities.

A woman who wanted a monogamous marriage could presumably negotiate a marital contract that would forbid the husband to take additional wives without her consent. However, she would have to buy this concession from the husband, which would make her worse off than if he were denied the right (in the absence of a contractual waiver of it) to take additional wives. Allowing polygamy would thus alter the distribution of wealth among women as well as among men.

Against all this it can be argued that polygamy would be uncommon in a society such as that of twenty-first century United States. But the less common it is, the fewer the benefits to be anticipated from legalizing it. And I am not sure that it would be all that uncommon. Although few American couples want to have more than two or three children, a polygamous union is not a couple. If a couple has three children, the ratio of adults to children is 2:3. In a polygamous household consisting of a husband, two wives, and four children, the ratio of adults to children is higher: 3:4. So the per-parent burden is less, even though there are more children.

Because polygamy is illegal everywhere in the United States, few Americans think of it as an option. If it were made respectable by being legalized, who knows? There are 400 American billionaires, and several million Americans with a net worth of at least $6 million. Nor, with most women working, is it obvious that a man would have to be wealthy in order to attract multiple wives, though presumably men who wanted to be polygamists would have to be able to offer some financial inducements, since most women would prefer to be a man’s only wife. As more and more men attempted to become polygamists, the “price” they would have to pay for a wife would rise, so polygamy would be a distinctly minority institution. But it would not necessarily be trivial in size or harmless in its social consequences, which would be likely to exceed those of homosexual marriage. Polygamy is banned in most advanced societies and flourishes chiefly in backward ones, particularly in Africa. This is some evidence against legalizing it.”

http://www.oprah.com/relationships/Polygamy-in-America

Information was brought to the atention of Polygamy 411  the courtesy of a very special reader, commentator and friend. Polygamy 411 thank you friend!

A Saudi court has sentenced an employee of the kingdom’s religious police to 120 lashes for marrying six women.

The man said he was not educated enough to know that Islam does not allow men to marry more than four women at any one time, said an official at Ahad al-Massarha court in the southern province of Jazan.

“The judge did not believe him. Nobody believed him. I honestly did not,” the official told Reuters.

The court banned the man from standing as a preacher and leading prayers, ordered him not to travel abroad for a five-year period and to memorise two chapters from the Koran.

The accused, in his fifties, is not a member of the Saudi Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice’s morals squad but holds an administrative position there, the official said.

Shaikh Abdul-Mohsen al-Qaffari, spokesman of the virtue and vice commission, said it was the commission that discovered the case. Judge Salman al-Waadani, who pronounced the sentence, could not be reached for comment.

The court official said, “Members of the commission were accompanied by police when they arrested the man with one of his wives but it was the governor of Jazan who ordered an investigation onto the case”.

The commission makes sure Saudi society abides by an austere interpretation of Islam in the kingdom, where clerics control the justice system.

With more than 5,000 members, its squads roam streets and shopping malls to make sure unrelated men and women are kept apart, that shops and restaurants are shut at prayer time, that women are covered from head to toe and to search for alcohol and drugs.

Islam allows polygamy for men on condition the wives are treated fairly. (Reuters)

Credit for the above info: Arabian Business.com by Souhail Karam on Wednesday, 18 February 2010

Nairobi — South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma has been in the news lately for many wrong reasons. JZ, as he is popularly known, is reported to have sired a love child with a divorcee.

What is seen as a breach of family trust has raised questions about Zuma’s personal judgement and whether he has the mettle to lead South Africa.

It has reignited attention to an embarrassing rape trial a few years ago in which he was accused of having non-consensual and unprotected sex with an HIV-positive family friend.

Many read political motive in those charges and Zuma was eventually cleared. But the trial embarrassed the man who, as vice-president, led the country’s moral regeneration movement initiated by former president Thabo Mbeki.

Zuma’s capacity to walk the talk on moral and ethical issues came into question and the latest incident shows that these remain valid and disturbing questions.

It is unclear what impact this has on Zuma’s standing amongst his majority black supporters in South Africa. But, going by the massive support he maintained throughout his rape and earlier corruption trials, it seems the black majority, who form the bastion of his support, are least bothered about his personal indiscretions.

JZ is a popular and highly accomplished political mobiliser who weathered what was widely seen as a carefully choreographed scheme to block him from ascending to high office following the conviction of his private financial adviser, Schabir Shaik, for corruption which forced his resignation as vice- president.

Justice Hilary Squire who presided over Shaik’s trial found that Zuma had a “generally corrupt” relationship with a fraudster who had bankrolled him in return for political favours which translated into lucrative government contracts.

As expected, Justice Squire’s ruling generated a great deal of hair splitting but Mbeki would have none of it. In his words, “the judgment (contained) some categorical outcomes which raised questions of conduct that would be inconsistent with expectations that attend to those who hold public office”.

A leitmotif of those who rallied to Zuma’s defence was to cast him as a victim of political machinations aimed at frustrating his political career. An underlying but barely subliminal line was to hack to a conspiracy theory of the Xhosa (represented by Mbeki) fighting a potential Zulu presidency.

These issues obscured the serious questions on integrity by a man aspiring for high office.

Zuma was, of course, eventually cleared of the corruption charges paving way for nomination by the African National Congress (ANC) to vie for the presidency.

The acquittal is seen as an act of deft political strategy notwithstanding the fact that the National Prosecution Authority was unable to sustain a conviction which entitles Zuma to the presumption of innocence.

Going by the notoriety of the past, it is almost certain that we have not had the last from Zuma’s rich cocktail of controversy. It begs the question whether a man prone to personal indiscretions can diligently execute his mandate and command respect on the world stage.

South Africa is not a nondescript republic. It is a regional leader whose economy is bigger than the combined GDP of the 14-member grouping of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC).

It has pioneered key blueprints like the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) that was reconfigured at last week’s African Union heads of state summit in Addis Ababa. A key player in regional peace keeping initiatives in Burundi and DRC, it is among top contributors to the African Union budget.

The towering image of the iconic Nelson Mandela is a global signature for tolerance amongst different races and that one places special responsibility on the country’s leadership.

While it is difficult to fit Zuma within Madiba’s moral and ethical prism, he must safeguard his legacy and his country’s strategic importance in Africa and on the world stage.

It is within Zuma’s call to decide on personal matters like polygamy on which he has been candid and forthcoming. One cannot begrudge a man who opts to follow the dictates of his culture. However, personal indiscretions and a poor judgement should not be excused.

Simply put, Zuma’s conduct must befit the standing of his office and serve as a role model as the head of Africa’s signature republic. The choice is easy and obvious but one that calls for serious soul searching.

Credit for the above: Gichinga Ndirangu, 6 February 2010, opinion . Gichinga Ndirangu is a lawyer and policy analyst

Cultural Expert and Lecturer Ndela Ntshangase, at the University of Kula-Zulu Natal in South Africa, speaks about polygamy. Ntshangase says polygamy is selfLESSness in practice.

Listen to Audio: Polygamy is Teamwork . See photo of Jacob Zuma (President of South Africa) and his wives.

Audio provided by ”Times Live Media”- 2/5/10