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?
To under stand
this question we need to understand what the Quran says on this matter.
Chapter (4) sūrat l-nisāa (The
Women)
Sahih
International: And if you fear that you will not deal justly
with the orphan girls, then marry those that please you of [other]
women, two or three or four. But if you fear that you will not be just,
then [marry only] one or those your right hand possesses. That is more
suitable that you may not incline [to injustice].
Chapter (4) sūrat l-nisāa (The
Women)
Sahih
International: And you will never be able to be equal [in
feeling] between wives, even if you should strive [to do so]. So do not
incline completely [toward one] and leave another hanging. And if you
amend [your affairs] and fear Allah - then indeed, Allah is ever
Forgiving and Merciful.
These verses have been
used by a small minority of Muslims as permission
to have up to four wives. This is however not correct. One needs to
under the
context in which these verses were reviled.
Muslims were under attack
and fighting many battles in which
many men were being killed. Many women were left widowed. In those
times men
would not marry a widow and these women were left within the society
with no
status.
Islam was the first
religion to instruct its followers to
treat women with respect and give them status in society. During these times of
conflict the Muslim men
were encouraged to marry widows. It was at this time that it was
permitted for
one man to marry more than one wife. This helped to keep the society
functioning
where large numbers of men had been lost.
However these rules were
for a specific need at a specific time
in history. The small minority of Muslims that use these verses to
justify their
marriage to more than one wife at the same time would be wise to read
the full
verse and understand that it clearly recommends that they marry only ONE.
2. The
Qur’an is the
only religious scripture in the world that
says,"marry only one".
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
(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. Qur’an
permits limited
polygyny
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.
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 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.