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Why is a man allowed to have more than one wife in Islam? i.e. why is polygamy allowed in Islam?
Polygamy means a system of marriage whereby one person has more than one spouse.
A lot of men do not have enough money to provide well for a family. Even some of the ones who have enough money are not good husband material.
With polygamy, one wealthy and powerful man can provide for several women and their families.
Without polygamy, you have a lot of single women trying to support and raise a family without any help, which is very tough.
That, and in times of war, which is almost continous throughout history there is an imbalance between men and women. It's not like Polygamy was created by Muslims, they inherited it from other religions and customs the predated them.
Well, the term polygamy actually refers to a marriage between more than two partners, but is used to indicate one man married to several women. The female equivalent is polyandry, which is not condoned in Islam.
The concept was conceived 1000s of years ago and has been disappearing with the advent of equal rights and modern civilisation. Mormons were the last Christian group which abandoned it over 100 years ago.
Muslims believe it makes sense because it is mentioned in the Koran and the Muslims accepting the sayings and actions of Muhammad also find it mentioned in their sunnah.
One reason for marrying more than one woman is given by Ghazali the Muslim scholar:
"Some men have such a compelling sexual desire that one woman is not sufficient to protect them [from adultery]. Such men therefore preferably marry more than one woman and may have up to four wives." (Razi, At-tafsir al-kabir, commenting on Q. 4:3)
What almost all Muslims do not know is that the sentence in question, 4:3 allows not only males having sex with female slaves, but also having 9 wives if read literally. There is even a fatwa issued concerning this and allowing Muslim men 9 wives due to the literal reading of 4:3 and the fact that at some stage, Muhammad had 9 wives.
If anyone looks at population statistics, one will find there is no real imbalance, so often cited as apology for this cultural left over. Specifically the age groups are totally ignored in order to create the impression there are more women than men in a specific country.
In all, it's a cultural interpretation which is hardly practised and not generally condoned by most clerics today.
"Some men have such a compelling sexual desire that one woman is not sufficient to protect them [from adultery]. Such men therefore preferably marry more than one woman and may have up to four wives."
I think my reasons in support of polygamy make more sense.
A lot of men do not have enough money to provide well for a family. Even some of the ones who have enough money are not good husband material.
With polygamy, one wealthy and powerful man can provide for several women and their families.
Without polygamy, you have a lot of single women trying to support and raise a family without any help, which is very tough.
So by your theory only rich men with lots of money to support a bunch of wives/kids should get married?
There doesnt have to be single women with kids not getting help if the men who fathered her darn kids took care of them. You see single mothers struggling because a lot of them arent getting help from the fathers. And it is NOT because they cant take care of them. They just want to spend money on something else. If a man cant be bothered to take care of one woman and one or two kids, why should he need five women and 10 kids? If the father and mother of the child actually did it the right way and got married and had kids and honored their marriage vows, some of this stuff wouldnt happen.
If if the unmarried people practiced safe sex instead of screwing each other like dogs, there would also be less of these "struggling single moms".
You dont need one man taking care of five women. You need men to take care of the woman they already have, and the kids they already have. Same goes for the women; take care of your kids.
I think polgamy is just an excuse for a guy to have a bunch of different women around to screw so he can feel like he's a King.
So by your theory only rich men with lots of money to support a bunch of wives/kids should get married?
Unless the woman has enough money to support herself and her children, a man should not marry her unless he can do his part to provide support for her and their children. Both my son and son-in-law qualify as good husbands, but many men do not.
That leaves a lot of women unable to find good husbands.
If a man has enough money to support more then one woman and her children, and if he has the courage to take on more than one wife, he should be allowed to do so.
Of course, this could lead to many problems, but it might make things better for many of the single mothers.
Because it is from God.God does something we do not know.Now look at the proportion of women and the proportion of men and know the answer
What proportion? Every country and every age group has a different gender distribution.
Do you know of a country with a gender distribution of 4:1?
Like Saudi Arabia with ~25m population, imagine 5 million are men and 20 million are women? Is this feasible? Is this possible?
Theoretically it should be possible even if the Koran does not say a man must have 4 wives, what if all men are rich and want to marry 4 wives? How would that work?
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