Reasons Why Polygamy is Important based on today's reality

    Bismillahi Rahman Roheem.

In the name of Allah the entirely merciful, the especially merciful.

All praises are due to Allah (SWT) May His Peace And Blessing be upon the model of our Spiritual inspiration and the Icon of our Intellectualism, Nabiy Muhammad (SAW) and i beseech Allah to extends the Blessing on his households, his companions and those Who follows his footsteps till the Day of Accountability. Ameen.

I was pondering over why do we have many Muslim sisters as single mother or spinsters, and the idea of polygamy seems to be the only solution to save the community of the faithful. Undoubtedly there are many misconceptions over this disguise blessing from Allah.

I'll tell you that marriage is not a goal but a means to an End. (Paradise & Hell). So our dwelling in it matters and very important towards our desired abode in the hereafter.

Looking into the bigger picture; that is being married is important and a compulsory sunnah but marrying for the right reason is more important and not because we should be married, we must not overlook the bigger picture by not marrying for the right reason. Marriage is a Sunnah and the bigger picture is upholding and giving trust within it and in fact makes its 50% of our being Muslim worthwhile.

Any action done within the relationship is an act of worship, the duty of man over his wife and the wife's duty over her husband in the Quran should be followed and acted upon.

All mandates of the religion of Islam are from Allah, the Wise, and thus one deduces that all things which are permitted are due to the fact that their benefit to the self and society outweighs their harms.  When one analyzes the reasons and results of the allowance of polygamy, it will be found that indeed the rulings of the religion of Islam are truly those which suits all times and places, as their source is Allah Almighty, the Wise and the Knowledgeable.

As the Quran indicates (Q4:3), the issue of polygamy in Islam is understood in the light of community obligations towards orphans and widows, Divorcee and singles that are being cautious to have a good husband while on the wait. Islam, as a universal religion that is suitable for all times and places, cannot ignore these compelling obligations.

Islamic polygamy addresses the social problems of prostitution and extramarital affairs common in the West.  Instead of cheating, infidelity is one of the top reasons for divorce among our folds.  Islam allows a man to marry more than one wife, with full recognition of the rights of both of them.  The basic principle in Islam is that men are held responsible for their behavior towards women just as women are responsible for their behavior towards men because marriage is a means to an End, its Ibadah and everything in it.

The number of women in the world exceeds that of men. The surplus is a result of good and responsible men are already married and women outliving the unmarried men. The upsurge in homosexuality further increases the problem. 

Bertrand Russell wrote, “And in all countries where there is an excess of women, it is an obvious injustice that those women who, by arithmetical necessity, must remain unmarried should be wholly debarred from sexual experience.”

Polygamy, then, is the only responsible solution for this predicament. Let us take the USA as an example.  Why are extramarital affairs so widespread?  What makes this state of affairs possible? of course, is a supply of willing women.

Most are single, both because of the growing numbers of unmarried women (there are 34 million in the United States today) and because single women generally have more free time and energy than do their married counterparts. 

Consider these statistics: One out of every five women today has no potential mate similarly only one out of twenty women can get a man for herself because there are simply not enough single men to go around.  A 25-year-old single woman faces a serious under supply of available men to start with, and the situation gets worse, the older a woman gets.  Divorced men are much more likely than divorced women to remarry (and they tend to marry younger women), so that there are more than twice as many single women as there are single men in their 40s.  Indeed, a woman who divorces at 35 today is likely to remain single for the rest of her life.  Caught in a demographic bind while seeking greater autonomy, more and more single women are opting for involvement with married men.

In addition, surplus of women who are not financially maintained by a husband is a cause of increased prostitution in the society.  For example, Germany has 0.96% males/female, under Germany’s welfare reforms, any woman under 55years who has been out of work for more than a year can be forced to take an available job including being a prostitute in the sex industry or lose her unemployment benefit. A 1994 study found that 16% of 18-59 years old men in a US survey group had paid for sex (Gagnon, Laumann, and Kolata 1994).

Furthermore, the problem of the unbalanced sex ratios can worsen during times of war.  The WWII war-bride phenomenon is a case in point.  After the WWII there were 7,300,000 more women than men in Germany alone (3.3 million of them were widows, Imagine the ration in Iraq and Afghanistan now).  

In Afghanistan, there were 100 men aged 20 to 30 for every 167 women in that age group and many of these women needed a man not only as a companion but also as a provider for the household in a time of unprecedented misery and hardship.  The soldiers in the victorious Allied Armies exploited these women’s vulnerability.  Many young girls and widows had liaisons with members of the occupying forces.  Many American and British soldiers paid for their pleasures in cigarettes, chocolate, and bread.

Polygamy is an alternative to divorce in case of some marital problems.  Islam permits a man to marry another woman while taking care of the first whose infertile wife chooses to stay with him.

The teachings of Islam, including polygamy, conform to human nature.  Men and women differ in their desire for sexual variety.  These differences are universal.  According to evolutionary scientists men are “hard-wired” to spread their seed.  Men everywhere, whether single or married, want more sexual partners than women do.  The Islamic solution provides the only responsible alternative to the naturally ingrained desire in men.

There is a universal biological constraint in male and female reproduction.  A woman’s reproductive capacity declines after her 20s and ends with menopause, but even a man in his 70s retains the ability to father children.

Polygamy is a solution for a man who desires more children, especially in traditional, agrarian societies.  This may seem irrelevant in the Western context where childbearing is increasingly becoming independent of marriage.

Polygamy is also an alternative for a man who desires to satisfy his natural sexual relations within the bounds of marriage, but whose wife may be averse to them due to age or sickness.  Moreover, Islam prohibits sexual relations during a woman’s monthly cycles.  Therefore, the prolonged menstrual period of the woman which prevents the husband from having sex with her, or a man whose sexual urge is not satisfied by one wife, may marry another.  Islam permits such men to realize their desire within a legal framework, making them responsible for their sexuality, so he does not have to resort to cohabitation or prostitution. And search your hearts very well in taking any decision because it’s an institution that leads to an End (Paradise or Hell-fire).

Recently a new research shows that some men have xxy chromosomes which is said to be between 1 in 500 and 1 in 1000 men have an extra X chromosome, a condition known as Klinefelter's Syndrome. It's an open question which is well explained in this scientific research that males with Klinefelter's Syndrome tended to have more sex than other guys. So if they are deprived of going for polygamy they may result to infidelity to quench their quest.

Institutional polygamy controls the spread of sexually transmitted diseases like Herpes and AIDS.  Such venereal diseases spread in promiscuous societies where extra-marital affairs and prostitution are widespread.  This may be due to a husband’s bringing back the diseases he is infected with in an extramarital affair when he returns back to his ‘monogamous’ relationship with his wife.

One can clearly see that there are many benefits which result from the allowance of polygamy.  Many societal ills are left untreated, if not created or worsened, due to modern restrictions placed on polygamy.  One should not always regard their culture and time the most superior in history, but rather they should analyze customs, traditions and beliefs based on solid and tangible facts.  When people do so, keeping an open mind and heart, they will draw nearer and nearer to the truth until it becomes clear as the light of day.

More so, Islam did not introduce polygamy.  Among all Eastern nations of antiquity, polygamy was a recognized institution.  Among the Hindus, polygamy prevailed from the earliest times.  There was, as among the ancient Babylonians, Assyrians, and Persians, no restriction as to the number of wives a man might have.  Although Greece and Rome were not polygamous societies, concubinage was a norm.  Islam regulated polygamy by limiting the number of wives to four and bringing responsibility to its practice.  In fact, according to David Murray, an anthropologist, historically polygamy is more common than monogamy. 

The Quran limited the maximum number of wives to four.  In the early days of Islam, those who had more than four wives at the time of embracing Islam were required to divorce the extra wives.  Islam further reformed the institution of polygamy by requiring equal treatment to all wives.  The Muslim is not permitted to differentiate between his wives in regards to sustenance and expenditures, time, and other obligations of husbands.  Islam does not allow a man to marry another woman if he will not be fair in his treatment.  Prophet Muhammad (SAW) forbade discrimination between the wives or between their children.

Also, marriage and polygamy in Islam is a matter of mutual consent.  No one can force a woman to marry a married man.  Islam simply permits polygamy; it neither forces nor requires it.  Besides, a woman may stipulate that her husband must not marry any other woman as a second wife in her prenuptial contract. The point that is often misunderstood in the West is that women in other cultures, especially African and Muslim world do not necessarily look at polygamy as a sign of women’s degradation.  Consequently, to equate polygamy with degrading women is an ethnocentric judgment of other societies.

Even though we see the clear permissibility of polygamy in Islam, its actual practice is quite rare in many Muslim societies. Some researchers estimate no more than 2% of the married males practice polygamy.  Most Muslim men feel they cannot afford the expense of maintaining more than one family.  Even those who are financially capable of looking after additional families are often reluctant due to the psychological burdens of handling more than one wife.  One can safely say that the number of polygamous marriages in the Muslim world is much less than the number of extramarital affairs in the West.  In other words, contrary to prevalent notion, men in the Muslim world today are more strictly monogamous than men in the Western world.

I might have written about what hurts your feelings, pardon me and don't hate the practice based on some few people mis-doings and experiences. Allahu Aalaaam!!! 

Wa salaam Alaikum