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When I look at this photo, I feel confusion. I understand polygamous relationships, but why does a man like this feel the need to have this many children with separate women? How does he manage so many families and how does he have enough money to support them all?

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The story behind this photo really intrigued me. The woman feeding the bride is in fact the groom's first wife. She is seen clearly celebrating along with the wedding and appears to have no issue in engaging a polygamous relationship with her husband and his new spouse.

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This talks about what it is like to be a woman in polygamy when it comes to Islam. The video touches on the religious beliefs that the Quran states about being in a polygamous relationship. A lot of men and women take the religion seriously, and will follow through with the polygamous relationship

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14: Women In Islam (Part 4) - Marriage, Divorce and Polygamy

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Is Polygamy a Better Deal for Men or Women?

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Is Polygamy a Better Deal for Men or Women?

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This website speaks on mostly men when it comes to polygamy. How it's hard on them, it's competitive, and that's hard on men than women. Women in this post weren't supported as heavily as the men were. There was little to no explanation on how it's a better deal for women. For people to understand both sides, I believe it would be fair to give a separate explanation on why it is or is not a better deal for women.

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The popularity of television shows such as Sister Wives and that feature polygamous families reveals an enduring human fascination with a social arrangement that is generally frowned upon by most modern societies.

Is it possible that we are drawn to these shows because they tap into our ancestral past?

Polygamy was a Common Arrangement in Human History

Our understanding of the murky evolutionary origins of human social organization and mating patterns is far from settled, but it is the consensus of scholars who study this topic that most early human groups utilized a polygamous (or at least serial monogamist) arrangement where dominant, high status men took multiple wives.

The things that contributed the most to a man's status in these early human groups were his skill as a hunter and as a warrior, but a man's social standing was also dependent upon how believable his threats of physical violence were. Men who maintained a reputation for being tough customers were better able to hang onto their status -and therefore their mates.

Whenever I discuss human mating systems in my classes, and before I delve too deeply into the topic, I ask the class if polygamy is a better deal for men or for women.

The question is usually greeted by suspicious smiles as if the students smell a trap baited by a trick question. Eventually, they reluctantly respond in unison with something that sounds like "duh!-Men!"

I then follow-up by asking " Which men?"

It quickly becomes apparent that when polygamy comes up, most students are thinking only of the high status guy who is adding yet another desirable woman to his harem, and that they are also thinking about the women who are forced to share him with each other.

No one, however, seems to be thinking about the great many men who get shut out of the mating game entirely under this sort of polygamous system.

Polygamy Creates Intense Competition Among Men

Sexual competition for mates has always been more intense for males than for females, especially in ancestral polygamous societies. The stakes were very high in this environment, as the winners of the competition between men would come away with the greatest number of women (and the most desirable women). The losers ran the risk of genetic annihilation by their failure to successfully win the status and resources necessary to attract mates.

Consequently, powerful men have always enjoyed greater sexual access to women than men lower in the pecking order, and stereotypical male traits such as ambition, competitiveness, and violence can be traced to this grim struggle for status and mates among men.

So, if you have a society with an approximately equal number of "marriageable" men and women, each time one man takes on a new wife, another man goes without a mate completely.

Monogamy appeared relatively late in human history when the size of human groups became large enough that one could not know everyone else in the group personally, so stability and order became much more complicated to maintain. Under these circumstances, a society could be completely undermined by having a large number of desperate, mateless men on the loose; monogamy may have become the vehicle for spreading women out among men in a way that diffused violence and lawlessness.

Indeed, even today, unmarried men are overrepresented as both perpetrators and victims of violent crimes such as assault and homicide.

This line of reasoning leads me to conclude that polygamy was a good situation for a very few privileged men, but an absolute nightmare for most.

And also think about this from the female perspective: Would it be more desirable to be the second or third wife of a powerful, influential man with great genes and bountiful resources, or the only wife of a loser?

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Is Polygamy a Better Deal for Men or for Women?

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The popularity of television shows such as Sister Wives and that feature polygamous families reveals an enduring human fascination with a social arrangement that is generally frowned upon by most modern societies. Is it possible that we are drawn to these shows because they tap into our ancestral past?

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This post is about a website that explains why more muslim women are committing to polygamous relationships. It talks about a divorced woman with two children marrying into a polygamous relationship. She started hesitant, but became warm to the idea. They planned the week, spending three days with her and three days with his second wife. The woman grew to love the relationship and loved the freedom she had. This shows that polygamy doesn't always have to be difficult (depending how many wives a man has).

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Farzana is a senior nurse, 36, attractive, selfpossessed and articulate. "I have begun to consider polygamy," she tells me at a matchmaking event in central London for divorced and widowed Muslims interested in marrying again. "When you think about love in an Islamic way, the co-wife idea makes sense."

According to Mizan Raja, who set up the Islamic Circles community network and presides over the east London Muslim matrimonial scene, women are increasingly electing to become "co-wives" - in other words, to become a man's second or third wife. As I reported last year in the New Statesman, Raja gets five to ten requests every week from women who are "comfortable with the notion of a part-time man". He explained: "Career women don't want a full-time husband. They don't have time." So couples live separately, a husband visiting his wives on a rota.

A dapper City boy listening to Raja whispered to me: "Actually, that's not right. In late twenties a girl is considered past it, so this arrangement is the best she can get."

If you're divorced, widowed or over 30 and Muslim, finding a husband in this country can be a challenge. Does polygamy, or more specifically polygyny (a man taking more than one wife, as opposed to a woman taking more than one husband), as sanctioned by the Quran, offer a possible solution?

Aisha (not her real name), a divorced single mother with two children, recently chose to become a second wife. She was introduced to her husband by a friend. She says that at first she was hesitant. "I was like, 'No, I can't do it. I'm too jealous as a person. I wouldn't be able to do it.' But the more that time went on and I started thinking about it, especially more maturely, I saw the beauty of it."

They agreed on the terms of the marriage by email, covering details such as "how many days he'd spend with me and how many days he'd spend with his other wife, and money and living arrangements". They then met twice, liked each other, set a date and were married. Her husband now spends three days with Aisha and her two children from her previous marriage and then three days with his other family, unless one of them is ill, in which case he stays to help but has to make up the missed time to his other wife.

She confesses that "if he was to stay all the time I'd love it", but says that having time off "is definitely beneficial in some ways as well". She has "more freedom" to see her friends and her family, and it is a relief "not having a man in your face half the time, when you are cranky, and he can go somewhere else and you can manage the kids on your own".

As a divorcee, bringing up children on her own for three years before remarrying, she built up an independent life for herself: "It's hard to let your goals go for a man all over again." Although she concedes they have had a "few teething problems" and that it took his first wife "some time to come to terms with it", now, she says, they "have come to an understanding . . . We are finding our feet." Both sets of children are aware of the new situation and have accepted it. In fact, she says that her husband's daughter from his first marriage "can't wait to meet second Mummy" and her own son, who now has a father figure and "role model" that he was previously lacking, is "really happy with it". They have yet to experience "a big family get-together", but Aisha says she is "hopeful that will happen soon . . . I've spoken to her [the first wife] a couple of times. She seems really lovely. I would really like for us to become good friends . . . for there to be that kind of bond of sisterhood between us."

The main obstacle to happiness, according to Aisha, "is the sense of ownership" and jealousy. "But that's something that you've just got to use your wisdom to get past . . . It's more important for me to have a father for my children . . . to have a helping hand when I need it." She insists that problems arise only when the husband does not treat both wives equally, as explicitly mandated in the Quran, or when the wives are not mature enough to rationalise and accept the situation.

Anecdotal evidence, in the absence of the statistical kind, suggests that polygamy is on the rise in Britain. And according to a poll conducted over a week by Singlemuslim.com, 33 per cent of men and 9 per cent of women would choose to be part of a polygamous marriage. Because such marriages take place through an unregistered marriage contract, they do not constitute bigamy, a criminal offence in the UK.

The reasons for polygamy are complex. Aisha says that, from her point of view, "Single mums don't have the pick of the bunch . . . [Polygamy] is there so we can still have the benefits of marriage, so we don't have to be left on the shelf, so our children can still have role models, father figures, and so we can still have that emotional stability, financial stability and security."

The stigma of divorce, as well as later marriages and the importing of foreign brides (15,500 women were admitted to the UK in 2011 as wives of British men, according to Home Office figures), have all exacerbated the problem for Muslim women looking for a husband.

Aisha tells me that her husband saw polygamy as his religious duty. "A lot of people think it's just about sex but . . . sex goes out the window after a while. If you don't want your husband marrying someone else, what would happen to these single mums, then, and these divorcees? Is it fair that they just stay on the shelf? We should be looking after our community. Islam is all about community and society and we should look after our brothers and our sisters equally, otherwise it's every man for themselves."

Kalsoom Bashir, the project manager of the Muslim women's rights organisation Inspire, and Khola Hasan of the Islamic Sharia Council in Leyton, east London, both believe that forced marriage is another reason for polygamy. British men are forced into marriages, often with cousins imported from "back home" with whom they have nothing in common. "For a man who has been in the difficult situation of being forced into a marriage, and the numbers are huge in Britain, absolutely huge . . . for many of them, polygamy is a good way of being happy and keeping the family happy," Hasan explains.

The Quran instructs Muslim men to "marry women of your choice two or three or four", but warns that "if you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly [with them] then only one or [your concubines]. That is more fitting so that you do not deviate from the right course." The Prophet Muhammad said, "Whosoever has two wives and he inclines towards one to the exclusion of the other, he will come on the Day of Judgement with his body dropping or bending down."

In other words, "It is mission impossible," according to Mufti Barkatulla, a senior imam and sharia council judge in Leyton. He firmly believes that there is no place for polygamy in modern Britain. "There are a number of cases we have come across and there is hardly a case where a man can balance all the duties required in a polygamous situation . . . In today's industrial society, it is impossible to observe the conditions laid down by the scriptures." Polygamy, he points out, predates Islam and was permitted in Islam in the context of war to offer protection to war orphans and widows. Many of the Prophet's 11 wives were widows.

Sara (not her real name) is a 40-year-old Muslim convert. She accepted the practice of polygamy as part of her religion and when she fell in love with a married man, she was the one who suggested that she become his second wife. "I was busy and studying. I felt I could cope with not having someone around all the time," she tells me.

In reality, though, Sara now says, their marriage was more like a religiously sanctioned affair. "Because of the social taboos against [polygamy], it had to be secret from the community and I couldn't have any children . . . because then it will be known that he has a second wife." Although she met her husband's first wife, going on holiday with her once and even offering to babysit her children, the first wife never fully accepted the situation. "I really had this idea that we somehow would eventually find some way of getting on . . . I was imagining it would be like these stories I have heard of where it works, so I thought it would just be a matter of time and we were destined to be together." Eventually, after six years, Sara sought a divorce.

In his 25 years presiding over thousands of divorce cases at the Islamic Sharia Council, Mufti Barkatulla has heard many similar stories. Between 2010 and 2011, 43 out of the 700 applications for divorce to Leyton's sharia council cited polygamy as the main reason.

Mufti Barkatulla and Dr Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, the former director of the Muslim Institute, devised a Muslim marriage contract - in effect, a religiously sanctioned prenup, to be signed at the time of the nikah, or religious ceremony - that sought to address the imbalance in Muslim marriages, giving women equal rights to divorce, allowing them to feel safe from rape or abuse, and preventing husbands from taking a second wife. It also states that the nikah must happen in conjunction with a civil ceremony, for extra protection.

He tells me the story of a woman whose husband "had agreed to a civil ceremony but because dates and everything were not agreed the husband kept on delaying it". One day when she got home, she found a notice on the door: "Everything is over. Collect your things from my sister's house." The woman told him that she felt as though she had been "on trial" but eventually was discarded.

An estimated 70-75 per cent of Muslim marriages in the UK are not registered under the Marriage Act, unlike Christian and Jewish marriages, which are registered automatically. Mosques have the legal right to register to conduct civil weddings, but only about one in ten have chosen to do so. A nikah or Muslim marriage can be performed anywhere, even using proxies or on Skype. When a marriage is not registered and the relationship breaks down, the unregistered wife has no rights to spousal or child support and can even be left homeless, denied her due share. In the event of the husband's death, the registered wife and her children will inherit and the unregistered wife and children will not.

If Muslim marriages are unregistered, and take place outside of the jurisdiction of this country, there is no automatic recourse to justice through the British courts. Instead, an aggrieved party must go to an unregulated sharia council for mediation. The crossbencher Baroness (Caroline) Cox is concerned by this clash between sharia and civil law. "There is now operating in this country a kind of parallel quasi-legal system and that goes against the fundamental principle of liberal democracy of one law for all." Of polygamy, she says: "To have more than one wife is not acceptable in the UK and people . . . must accept the laws of the land they choose to live in." In 2011, she introduced the Arbitration and Mediation Services (Equality) Bill, which had its second reading in the House of Lords last October and "would make it illegal for any person or contacts to be established which would operate as a kind of alternative legal system. Anyone purporting to operate in that way in a judicial capacity would actually be committing a criminal offence that could [be punished with] a prison sentence for this alternative legal system." The bill will be re-tabled in the next Parliament.

Khola Hasan of Leyton's sharia council believes that forcing mosques to register all nikahs, and thereby banning polygamy, will only make Muslims feel more persecuted. "The Muslim community in Britain already feels victimised," she says, and it will inevitably force the practice underground, leaving women more vulnerable. She argues that, rather than banning polygamy, which she views as a "solution to many complex and difficult situations", the practice should in fact be recognised by British law.

According to the Singlemuslim.com poll, 61 per cent of Muslim men and 28 per cent of Muslim women agree with Hasan that British law should be changed to permit polygamy. "Britain is refusing to accept that polygamy takes place," she says. "It's a reality and I think the British legal system is going to have to open its eyes and accept that it's a reality in Britain.

"Polygamy is not going to go away."
"Jemima Khan and the Part-Time Wife" will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 29 April

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What kind of woman is willing to share her husband?

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Farzana is a senior nurse, 36, attractive, selfpossessed and articulate. "I have begun to consider polygamy," she tells me at a matchmaking event in central London for divorced and widowed Muslims interested in marrying again. "When you think about love in an Islamic way, the co-wife idea makes sense."

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In this website there's a story about a woman who fell poor after being in a polygamous relationship with her husband. She married her spouse at a very young age, with a large age gap between them. Eventually they had children together, then years later married another woman. The woman had no say whether she was comfortable or not with polygamy, but she had to deal with it anyway. In the end, the man abandoned her and his family to make a new one with the second wife. This left the other woman to be poor, her sons to drop out and start working, and dealing with loss and poverty. This shows polygamy can ruin someone's life as well.

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NAIROBI, Aug 15 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - It was after 21 years of marriage and six children together that Joyce's husband brought home his second wife, without any discussion or warning.

The 38-year-old Kenyan housewife, who married at 17 with no education or skills, had to share her home and husband with a woman almost half her age.

"I was completely dependent on him. There was no choice but to put up and shut up," said Joyce, now 58, sitting in the office of a women's rights charity on Nairobi's outskirts.

"Things changed after she moved in. He stopped caring. The school fees, clothes and toys stopped. His new family was well taken care of, but my kids didn't even finish high school."

Unable to make ends meet, Joyce married off her daughters before they turned 18. Her sons dropped out of school to work as child farm labourers and provide for the family.

Having multiple wives is common in about one-quarter of the world's nations - predominantly conservative, male-dominated communities in Africa and Muslim-majority countries where it is part of traditional or religious customs.

But campaigners say most polygamous marriages in Kenya, and other African nations, are fuelling poverty - with husbands neglecting one family over another - leaving thousands of women and children impoverished and easy prey for exploitation.

Almost 1.5 million Kenyans - or 10% of the married population - are in a polygamous marriage, according to latest data from the Kenya Population and Housing Census.
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But women's rights groups say this a gross underestimate as most of these marriages are customary and not registered. Worse still, many women are unaware they are even sharing a husband as he may keep them in separate homes without informing them.

"Polygamy is the biggest contributor to poverty as most men who get into it cannot afford it - and it is the women and children who suffer most," said Teresa Omondi-Adeitan, executive director of the Federation of Women Lawyers in Kenya.

"Sometimes they are evicted after the new wife arrives and tensions arise. In other cases, the man has to divide his little resources further between all the families, and there is less money, less food, and less everything for everyone."

Kenyan housewife Wanjiru, 80, during an interview about her polygamous marriage at the women's charity Daughters of Mumbi Resource Centre in Kiambu county in Kenya on July 3, 2018. Nita Bhalla/Thomson Reuters Foundation

Poverty

The UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women says polygamy should be discouraged and outlawed because such marriages are unequal and have negative emotional and financial impacts on women and children.

But men have taken multiple wives for centuries, citing the need to have a large family to help with farm labour and to ensure offspring if children die or one wife is infertile.

A larger family was also traditionally seen as a source of pride, wealth and high social status and protective for women in cultures where they cannot own resources like land.

Despite growing modernity and awareness of women's rights, polygamy remains legal in most African nations and is prevalent across society, from farmers to senior politicians, such as former South African President Jacob Zuma who has had six wives.

But for polygamy to work, wives must buy into the practice and the husband should have enough income to look after all of them and their children. Yet this is not always the case.

In Kenya, a wife's consent is not legally required for husbands to marry again, and men are often unable to adequately provide for them.

Almost 43% of households where the man is in a polygamous union are poor compared to 27% of those in monogamous unions, says the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics.

Poverty reaches 46% in households where the woman is married to a polygamous man who does not live with her, it says.

"Survival Sex"

With most Kenyan women already poorer than men, single mothers often struggle to provide food, schooling, health care and security for their children, say campaigners.

As a result, their children are more susceptible to diseases, from malaria to malnutrition, less likely to complete school or find work, and at higher risk of early marriage, sexual exploitation, or forced labour.

"There are a lot of factors which contribute to child vulnerability - but from our experience it is clear that poverty is one of the biggest," said Angela Nyamu, country director for child rights charity Terres Des Hommes.

"Anecdotal evidence suggests the structure of the family does play a role. Children who are in single-parent households are more vulnerable and it can push them into many forms of exploitation."

From Kenya's slums to its palm-fringed beaches, thousands of children are having "survival sex" for as little as a bag of sugar, a piece of fish or even just a ride home.

In many cases there is a link to polygamy.

"My father took another wife and my mother, me and my sisters had to leave," said 19-year-old Monasha who began sex work in the beach resort of Diani when she was 15.
Read More: #MyDressMyChoice - Protests in Kenya after a woman is publicly stripped
"I had to quit school and help at home. I started doing this as there was nothing else for me to do to get some money," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

While campaigners say women and children in polygamous unions need better protection if the relationship falls apart, most are against outlawing a culturally entrenched practice.

They called for the government to enforce a law to register customary polygamous marriages, so that women would have official evidence of the marriage - making it easier for them to claim child maintenance or the husband's assets or property.

"Criminalization isn't always the answer," said Judy Gitau, a women rights lawyer from the charity Equality Now.
(Reporting by Nita Bhalla @nitabhalla. Editing by Katy Migiro. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, property rights, climate change and resilience. Visit http://news.trust.org)
"If the law is implemented and women are given their entitlements, things will slowly change and greater social awareness will eventually see polygamy dying out."

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Polygamy Breeds Poverty for Kenyan Women and Children

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NAIROBI, Aug 15 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - It was after 21 years of marriage and six children together that Joyce's husband brought home his second wife, without any discussion or warning. The 38-year-old Kenyan housewife, who married at 17 with no education or skills, had to share her home and husband with a woman almost half her age.