Polygamy 411

When a husband has decided that he will exercise his right and engage in polygamy (in Islam), should his first wife help him select a second wife? I have read material in which people have recommended that a first wife participate in the decision making process of selecting a second wife for her husband.

Regarding me, I think I should not be privy to participate in the selection. First of all, I am not the person that would be marrying the woman. My husband is the one that has to be attracted to her. He is the one that will have to live with her, love her, and have sexual relations with her, have intimate conversations with her, and spend his wealth on her, and more. 

I contemplated the reasons that a first wife would want to be part of the selection process, and whether there is a valid reason for her participation, in Islam. Does it really matter whether the first wife likes the potential second wife or not?  What does the first wife’s likes and dislikes regarding the potential second wife really have to do with her husband liking the woman?  Does the first wife have to do any of the above mentioned acts with the second wife?

A first wife’s need for involvement in selecting her husband’s second wife could serve a primary purpose that I could see; it would be control. She could prolong the process by not being able to agree on a suitable person. She could select someone that her husband entirely does not want, and wouldn’t be happy with. She could attempt to sabotage the marriage to someone her husband does have a sincere interest in and desire to marry. I know this for a fact; I wanted to meet my husband Alex’s prospective second wife so I could attempt to influence the relationship in some negative way. 

I see a benefit in a current wife not getting involved in the selection. If the marriage to the second wife is not successful, the husband cannot look to the first wife to blame if he doesn’t like the new wife. After all, it was his decision.

Please do not misunderstand me.  I am not talking about mutual consultation. I believe firmly that a husband should consult his first wife about his decision to engage in polygamy and if he is “kind” give her some time to adjust to the decision before he rushes off into it.

I think a husband should introduce his first wife to the potential second wife, as well, so first wife and potential second wife could communicate if they choose to do so. But I think the selection process as to whom he marries should be entirely the husband’s decision. There is nothing wrong if a husband requests his first wife’s assistance, but to say it should be a right of a first wife, I beg to differ. 

What do you think the benefits would be for a first wife assisting her husband in choosing his second wife?

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

Carolinah didn’t like that Alex had gone away on vacation with me, and had celebrated his and my anniversary at that time.  She had found out about it from text messages I sent her. (What Allah wants revealed, no one can conceal. What Allah wants concealed, no one can reveal.)

So, Carolinah decided she’d take matters into her own hands, as you already know.  There was total turmoil and immense confusion in our lives for a while.  But, Alex did come home as originally scheduled and the night was still.  What happened the next couple days is important.

When a husband considers taking direction from one wife when he has two, what type of effect does that have on a marriage?  A second wife tells her husband that she doesn’t want him there and tells him to go to his first wife; she then tells him when to come back home to her (the second wife) – is that an innovation?

Please tell me where Islam dictates that a wife can order the comings and goings of her husband and take control of the life of the husband’s other wife, as well…

WSN Bureau

MEERWALA: Pakistani gang-rape victim Mukhtar Mai, 37, who shunned custom and rose to global fame by speaking out against her rapists, has defied yet another local taboo by marrying the police constable who was assigned to protect her and investigate her case in 2002.

In an interview from Meerwala, in Southern Punjab, Mai confirmed that she has married Nasir Abbas Gabol, 30, after refusing his hand for several years. She is his second wife.

“He says he madly fell in love with me,” Mai said, adding that she had relented only after Gabol threatened to kill himself if she did not agree. Mai said she was also reluctant to trespass on Gabol’s existing marriage, but agreed finally to become his second wife after the first wife also implored her.

Pakistani gang rape victim who won international acclaim as a campaigner for women’s rights has married, but not before she ensured that justice is done to the man’s first wife. At least the variety of justice that she knows.

“I will adjust (to marriage) because the co-wife is very positive,” she said.

Mai was raped in 2002 after her teenage brother was accused of having an affair with a girl from another tribe, the Mastoi Baloch, which had higher social standing than her own. Her brother was captured, beaten and sodomised by men from the Mastoi Baloch.

But, not satisfied by this, a traditional village court ordered that Mukhtar Mai be gang-raped as punishment. The case remains before the courts.

Unable to bear the social stigma attached to them, Pakistani rape victims often commit suicide, but Mukhtar Mai, also known as Mukhtaran Bibi, decided to challenge her attackers and drag them to court, winning international renown in the process.

Using the around $8,000 awarded to her by the Pakistani government in 2002, she now runs several schools, an ambulance service and a women’s aid group in her village and has written an autobiography.

Mai insists that marriage would not change her mission and she will continue to live with her parents, and not move to Gabol’s village.

Credit for above information: World Sikh News-6/5/09

No Rights for Sharia Wives

Dagestani women who enter into polygamous marriages risk losing everything – even their children – when their husband tires of them.

By Polina Sanayeva in Makhachkala

Madina thought that she had married well. The educated and worldly Dagestani woman was thrilled with her husband – a wealthy man with a large house – and thought nothing of it when he asked her to marry him in a mosque, instead of at the local registry office. The latter was “all just rubbish, paper”, he said. So Madina gave up her job, was a housewife for three years and tried her utmost to be her husband’s idea of a Muslim wife.

But her husband, seemingly, had other ideas. His preference for a mosque wedding apparently stemmed from an intention to take a second wife – which is permissible under Sharia law.

“I slaved for the family, to put it bluntly. But my husband decided to marry again. I was not ready for this turn of events and I told him so. Then he showed me the door. And no one supported me. I went to live at my grandmother’s house. Some time later, my former husband took my daughter away from me,” she said.

The court battle for custody of their daughter is still going on, although Madina says that she has no more money or strength to contest it. Her husband bribed the judge and presented false documents claiming that she had treated the little girl badly, she claims. The child now lives with her former husband’s new wife and Madina, aged only 32, says that she has no energy to start a new life.

Madina is one of hundreds of women to suffer as a result of a growing trend in Dagestan – men taking advantage of their Muslim status to take a second or even third wife, even though polygamy is forbidden under Russian law. As a result, these “Sharia wives” have few rights in the secular republic.

Until recently, only Dagestan’s wealthiest men with high social status took second wives, as it was thought that they “could permit themselves” to do so from an economic and ethical point of view. However, many other men have also chosen to ignore the official registry office and marry according to Sharia law, and this practice has spread widely. While more optimistic religious figures link this phenomenon to the growth of Muslim self-awareness among Dagestanis, sociologists, psychologists and also representatives of Islam are choosing to see it as the result of a decline in morals.

While imams at mosques in the Dagestani capital Makhachkala say that almost all couples who marry there do so before or after their official registration, there are others who go to the registry office only under pressure from their families, as it is more important for them that their marriage is blessed by Allah. As a result, some believe that a Sharia marriage is the only necessary form of legalised matrimonial relations.

But in many cases, the process of taking new wives is only indirectly related to religion.

“Modern Dagestan citizens who come to Islam by tradition are what are called ‘ethnic Muslims’,” said one young man who describes himself as a fundamentalist. “They allow themselves to be Muslims only when it is convenient for them. For example, they drink and smoke quite readily, despite the prohibitions that are clearly set out in the Koran. It is also convenient for them to take a second wife and they do so, saying that their religion allows it.”

Many religious young women readily agree to be second Sharia wives in spite of their poor status compared to an officially registered first wife. Husbands tend to treat their second wife with less respect than their first, and such unions are often kept secret from the husband’s relatives and his first family.

Irina Rudakova, head psychologist at the Genesis crisis centre for women, which has been working in Makhachkala for five years, said, “At the moment, the chance of taking a second wife for a man is a convenient, socially acceptable form of legalised relations, which are more properly categorised as extramarital.

“The problem is that for women who marry in this way, nothing changes in their relations with the man after they are formally married. They remain in an illegal or semi-legal position, which does not give them any more stability or social protection. And if the marriage breaks up – usually on the initiative of the husband and his family – the woman has no chance to defend her rights. At any rate, it is useless to appeal to the state.”

However, many specialists agree that the psychological discomfort and social infringement of marriage rights is nothing in comparison with what women have to endure when their Muslim husbands literally throw them out on the street.

“I am in favour of polyandry – where a woman marries more than one man – and I am happy with the Russian constitution, with its declaration of the equal rights of men and women. But these local ‘Sharia marriages’ are a big deception by men,” said publicist Svetlana Anokhina.

“Men ignore their obligations. If a Sharia husband gets sick of his wife, he throws her out, and this is still considered a disgrace for the woman – as if it’s her fault! It’s like something out of the Middle Ages.”

Amina was still a student when she married a man older than herself. She says that she decided to become a second wife primarily because of the so-called economic factor – her husband was wealthy – and did so against her parents’ wishes. Amina lived separately from her husband, in an apartment registered in her name, and did not work, partly because she had given birth to a daughter, and partly because her husband’s wealth made it unnecessary. But before long her husband had gently but insistently forced her out of the apartment, and then broke off relations with her. “He got tired of pressure from his family who never accepted me as his lawful wife,” she said.

Unable to return to her parents’ home, Amina and her daughter lived with a friend for six months while she looked for work. She now works as a house painter and rents a small apartment. Only 25-years-old, Amina has the air of one who is already used to surviving adversity.

The lack of any legal mechanism to regulate relations within a Sharia family can also cause problems for first wives as well as for the second. Women in Sharia marriages usually spend many years not working, and live a closed-off life. Therefore if the husband withdraws his care of her, she feels completely helpless. With no rights, she cannot approach the state for help in making the husband respect his obligations, and a lawyer can only advise that the Sharia wife is in fact a mistress in the eyes of the law.

The Dagestan legal code does contain provisions for a Sharia wife to claim property that was acquired jointly with her husband. But, in practice, such women have not been able to successfully do so in court, and lawyers do not take on such obviously difficult cases – too many conditions need to be observed, and there are too many factors working against them.

This runs contrary to the principles of Islamic law, which gives a wife more rights than her husband in a marriage, and the legislation of the secular state which stresses equality of the sexes.

“Men who take their obligations seriously do not marry second wives very often, and they treat their first marriage very seriously,” said Islamic law specialist Idris Magomedov. “In a real Sharia marriage, all the responsibility for the woman, for the family and the children, lies fully with the man. His obligation is not just to fully provide for his wife financially, but to make sure that his wife is healthy and happy.”

And indeed some Dagestan women have never been happier than within a Sharia marriage. Aishat used to be called Alyona before being persuaded by her husband to convert to Islam. The Russian woman is now a Muslim, has been married for eight years, and has three children. She wears a headscarf and long dresses, as is proper, with only her face and wrists visible. “I gained peace and faith. I now have many new friends. I believe that they are all my new Muslim family,” she said.

Magomedov, who has made a scientific study of the issue of polygamy in Dagestan, said that many religious Dagestani men remarry because they are unhappy with a first wife who does not wish to adhere to religious principles – for example, wearing Islamic clothing, praying five times a day and observing fasts. They marry women who fully share their beliefs.

According to political scientist Ruslan Kurbanov, “I see a solution in creating a Sharia court. In a secular society this is also possible, and a precedent already exists. For example, in [the Canadian province] of Ontario [such a court] has existed for a long time and with the permission of the authorities.

“Most of the people who so readily marry second wives do this out of an ignorance of Islam. The basis of the requirement laid out in the Koran is fair and equal treatment of wives by the husband.”