Why is a man allowed to have more than one wife in Islam? i.e. why is polygamy allowed in Islam?

1. Definition of Polygamy


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 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:

> ‘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 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.



[This is an excerpt from Dr. Zakir Naik's Speech.]

I recently discovered through a documentary that polyandry still prevails in some northern regions of India. It came as quite a shock to me that people yet (de jure) practice such a pre-historic thing. Above all, they're pretty contented about it.

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...and I am the dark of this our new day

Old habits die hard.

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Verily, His command, when He intends a thing, is only that He says "Be!" - and it is! (Al-Quran)

Yeah maybe.

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...and I am the dark of this our new day

nice topic but after arguing for an hour it is still impossible to convince Pakistani women .
they aren't going to allow . i think it is legitimate to have 10 girlfriends but the society calls you sinner if you intend for another marriage .

well ISLAM allows it only if one can do the justice between the rights of wives and in a poor country its not easy to do . Better swallow that hard pill once and forever.

My dear,

This is in NO WAY a joke. We are discussing the commandments of the Creator. Your attitude reflects the way you regard His commandments.

You are strongly suggested to reread the 1st post and clarify your misconception.

Islam does not make it OBLIGATORY. It only allows it. On the contrary it instructs everyone to marry one if you fear that you cannot do justice to more than one.

I hope its clear!

__________________
Verily, His command, when He intends a thing, is only that He says "Be!" - and it is! (Al-Quran)

No doubt Islam is the only religion which glorifies the respect of female in the society.
Islam allows polygyny just to protect the daughter of eve .However, on the other hand the man is allowed to have more than one wife with strict compulsion. Accordingly the man can marry more than one women not for the fulfillment of his sexual desire or lust but for the help of ill-fated and poor woman,like widow, orphan etc.

Exactly.
Bro, you have made the simplest precis of the article posted above.

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Verily, His command, when He intends a thing, is only that He says "Be!" - and it is! (Al-Quran)

I read that carefully and deduced.

whatever you posted here is not HIS commandments but it looks as if u have compared Islam ( the greatest religion in fact a Deen ) to a religion which is practice in a single country called Hinduism ( i believe there should be no comparison at all) . so i replied in a light manner as there is nothing to bother .

please mention the reference . i never seen such a full verse .

how can this be the a divine rule ?

every Muslim knows about the maximum limit of four and in my previous post i added to this , a dilemma of our nation where the society thinks second marriage a sin . i believe , better get a second wife rather ogling at other women.


a statistical calculation . may be true .seems true though .


so is the case with Pakistan although we don't kill infants very often .
http://www.statpak.gov.pk/depts/pco/...ndicators.html

ratio = 108 / 100 male to female .

may be the 51 % ratio is a truth.

true . this world is full of variety some never marry and some marry 100 times .


Conclusion

i talked about the polygamy issue in a funny manner .
why ?
because in our society no one bothers about the extra marital relations and we waste our precious time on arguing should second wife be allowed ?
remember Quran permits it conditionally but " Islamic " republic of Pakistan has made it complicated .

secondly , the one Quranic ayah you mentioned here is the only thing that is translation of His commandments.
Surat Nisa .
"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."

my laughter was for " REPUBLIC OF Pakistan " not "ISLAM" or the ayah


this was what i interpreted from surah nisa .


and one thing i want to add here .

don't live a bachelor's life one must marry at least once in his life .

and about marriage as "the swallowing of a hard pill"
sir , it is a reality that life after marriage is full of duties.


My intentions were not to make fun of your arguments but i wanted to open a new thing in this topic . and please dont compare the Great Deen to a baseless Hindu religion .

First of all Mussaa would like to say that you all know very little about polygamy in Islam. I will give certain points here and in the light of those points if someone doesn’t get satisfied he can ask other things too and I would try my best to answer them.

1) As someone mentioned that Hindus are more polygamous than Muslims so make it clear that polygamy is not a bad thing as you are comparing Muslims and Hindus in this regard.

2) Other thing is that it is a Hindu custom which prohibits more than one marriage not Islam.

3) Another misconception I would like to remove that Islam does not allow 4 marriages rather it prohibit keeping more than 4 wives at a time. When we say Islam allows four marriages it makes sense that Before Islam people used to have only one wife and then came the Islam and allowed four marriages. The real situation is that Before Islam people of Arab used to make 20-20 marriages or even more. This custom still prevails there and many Arabs have even 50 wives. So Islam restricts the number of wives to 4 at a time.

4) What Quran prefers is marriage of 1 man to 1 woman as it is the best way to run the institution of marriage life. Islam doesn’t say marry only one but it prefers 1-1 marriage. Its wrong which Redmax has said that Quran says Marry only one.

5) Another thing is that it is in our society that women are totally against polygamy as we have spend hundreds of years with Hindus where there is a custom of one marriage only. So the germs have been transferred in our women. In Arab countries women make no issue of polygamy.


I think after all the above points there is no need to mention any scientific points in favor of polygamy.

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Aap shabdon mein kahan bandh payenge.
Kabhi mere aankhon mein jhaank kar dekho,
Hazaron alfaz khud-b-khud bikhar jayenge.