The history of polygamy dates back to a long time ago, having been practiced for many centuries by tumultuous cultural landscapes. Subjectivist theories of values evaluate ‘polygamy’ and ‘monogamy’ in a continuous face off against each other, always giving credibility to one over the other, often associating the wrath of polygamous jargon as condescending threats to the sacred institution of marriage, inconsistent with the good of society, being the source of the worst corruptions. However, in the changing times of today, it is the prevalent influence of feminism on a growing avant-garde civilization that no longer openly shames women for promiscuous behavior, and often very much so celebrates it.
In a perfect world, it is true that men and women would marry, live long and happy lives together, and part ways with this diminishing reality at about almost the same time. In this case, there would be no need for second marriages. But we live in a world that is far from perfect – where people sometimes die young or collapse into a divorce, leaving behind grieving spouses and partners with potentially long lives ahead of them.
So, what do we do then? We make the best of the prevalent situation.
In the United Kingdom, ‘polygamous’ marriages – having more than one spouse – are only recognized if they seminate in countries where they are legal, as reported by BBC. Resultantly, no British laws have the right to stop unregistered religious ceremonies from taking place.
“The second wife website came about from my need, and thinking there’ll be other people in my situation,” said Azad Chaiwala, the creator of the portal, Secondwife.com.
Most Muslims in the UK do not follow the tradition of practicing polygamy, but interpretations of the Holy Quran say that a man may marry up to four women, as long as he can deal justly and fairly with each one of them.
Chaiwala, from Sunderland, further added: “There are other deceiving ways of doing it – affairs, prostitution etc. – those are not necessarily good for relationships.”
Narrating the figures that 100,000 people had signed up on the website – with men outnumbering women in a three to one ratio – he denied the very fact that it was something just for men. He said, “It takes two hands to clap; a guy can’t do it on his own.”
“We’ve got so many successful marriages and so many women signed up themselves… they are opting to enter this kind of relationship,” he furthered his point.
“The whole idea is to build ‘bigger and better’ families.”
Prof Thom Brooks, dean of Durham Law School said, “I think that as the country is trying to get a greater sense of equality, certainly trying to make steps towards gender equality, I think this is something which would be a stumbling block – this would be a setback.”
Tarek, a doctor based in South Yorkshire signed up to the website, commenting, “I found there were a lot of ladies who are growing old or divorced or single mothers, and nobody’s really interested in them. I thought ‘well if I have the ability to manage more than one wife then I would like to have this opportunity’… I’m not just doing it to have, I’m doing it to give.”
Tracy, his “second-wife” said: “I thought long and hard about polygamy and I thought ‘well, OK, this could actually work out to my advantage’… I want to be married to somebody but I still want to be able to travel and have my independence.”
While admitting to the consequences of being more insecure, as her co-wife has another child coming along the way and is in dire need of more support, she gave into the construct of it being rather ’emotionally draining’.
Tarek concluded: “It’s up to the man, as wise as he could be, to treat them fairly and kindly and caringly… The woman has the choice. She can walk away from the ‘marriage’ at any point.”