The Joys of Polygamy

This post is really a follow-up to Balajee's comment on my previous post. I have wondered too, as Balajee does, about when certain reforms to a certain religion (which we shall coyly not name until the next paragraph) will take place.

Actually, the real question is: why should we care if Islam carries out marital reforms, specifically? Well, apart from the obvious human angle, there is a personal side. What if one of our daughters or sisters decides to marry into Islam? Will she have an adequate safety-net in case the marriage goes south? What if she marries a non-Muslim who migrates to find work in an Islamic country and who then on a lark decides to convert and take a second (and third, and fourth) wife? These are questions worth thinking about because these hypotheticals are not so much of a stretch, really.

What I find particularly scary is that even in a supposedly progressive society such as India, a Muslim woman will probably find it difficult to get things like alimony from an unwilling husband. Especially so if the issue can be politicized enough.

I seriously don't understand women who naively defend what can only be called thinly veiled (no pun intended) misogyny. I was reading an article written by someone named Shaheen Ahmed (who is most certainly a woman) and is called American, Ambitious, and Muslim. The article is quite on the mark for the most part and talks about the unfair stereotypes that Muslim women have to tolerate in the United States, especially post 9/11.

And then somewhere in the middle of the article, the objectivity breaks down and the author starts lamenting the absence of Sharia in the United States. Here's one paragraph:

Muslim women also find that it can be hard to achieve their Islamic rights in the United States because religious law is not recognized. For example, women who marry under Islamic law and who do not obtain a civil marriage license find themselves at a loss when that marriage is not recognized in the American courts. Wives of polygamous husbands have no marital rights in the United States since polygamy is considered illegal. The second, third or fourth wife is considered to be in a common law marriage and her children illegitimate. As such, she has some of the same rights as a woman who has "lived together" with her boyfriend and can challenge her Islamic husband to pay child support. However, the question of alimony can be particularly difficult. The onus is on the wife to prove that they lived together as partners and she, at least, thought she was married.

I find it bizarre that the author hints that the United States should recognize polygamy to solve the problem of marital rights of Muslim women.

Funny, I would have thought that the solution lies in precisely the opposite direction. Instead of suggesting that the rest of us reform and recognize polygamy, we should suggest that Islam reform and refuse to recognize polygamy.

But the latter and more humane solution is opaque to the author. What can I say? Such is the condition of the brainwashed, Balajee. As I live and learn, I find that conditioning is a very powerful force. More powerful an influence on a human being than anything I have personally seen. Every emotion bends in defeat to conditioning--humanity, compassion, fellow-feeling, love... you name it. Conditioning conquers all.

Those with the no backbone no minds of their own are most affected by conditioning, of course, but I suspect that none of us are completely immune to it.

Edit: The article spoken of can be found here.