Why is Polygamy allowed in Islam
Question:
Why
is a man allowed to have more than one wife in
Islam? i.e. why is polygamy allowed in Islam?
Answer:
Definition of Polygamy
1. 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.
Now coming to the original question, why is a
man allowed to have more than one wife?
2. The Quran is the only religious
scripture in the world that says, "marry only
one".
The
Quran 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 (95% 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.
3. Hindus are more polygynous than
Muslims
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.
4. Quran permits limited polygyny
As I
mentioned earlier, Quran 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
Quran:
"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-Quran
4:3]
Before the Quran 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-Quran
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 Dos and
Donts:
-
�Fard� i.e. compulsory or obligatory
-
�Mustahab� i.e. recommended or
encouraged
-
�Mubah� i.e. permissible or allowed
-
�Makruh� i.e. not recommended or
discouraged
-
�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.
5. Average life span of females is
more than that of males
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.
6.
India has more male population than female due
to female foeticide and infanticide
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.
7.
World female population is more than male
population
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.
8.
Restricting each and every man to have only one
wife is not practical
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 honorable,
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 honorable 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.
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