THE ISSUE OF POLYGAMOUS MARRIAGES AND WHAT CAN BE DONE TO HELP BOTH PARTNERS Written By AlJannah Adedamola Sanni

Marriage/Igbeyawo or Igbeyawo (Yoruba)/Nikkah (Arabic)/Boda (Spanish) is traditionally described as the conjunction of a male and a female to become a unit. Married individuals are called couples. There are various kinds of marriages such as monogamous (a man and his wife), polygamous (a man and his wives), and homogenous (same sexual marriage). The third kind of marriage mentioned is not supported by the penner of this article as she sees it as a sin and Allah also detests it. Marriage joins families of the couple together as well. 

The kind of marriage that would be evaluated for the aim of this writing is the polygamous one which is defined aforementioned. Chapter 4 of the Holy Quran which is An-Nisa (The Women), Verse 129 discusses the issue of a man getting married to up to four wives, but if he knows there would be injustice and biases, he should stick to one which the men do not want to hear as they believe it is Sunnatic (traditions and doings of Prophet Muhammad (Sallalahu Alaihi WaSalam). Nabi (Sallalahu Alaihi WaSalam) married more than four wives indeed but he never for once showed favoritism to one wife, which the majority of men in this epoch can’t do as they would surely have the wife they adore most, and they even make it known to the other ones which leads to enmity between the wives which later becomes an issue the husband himself would not be able to bear at the long end. Mathna is second in the Arabic language, Thalath is third in the Arabic language while Rubia is fourth in the Arabic language. 

What exasperates the writer of this article is that these men tend to do bandwagon, which in layman’s terms can also connote “follow follow/imitation/mimicry”. Because they see a fellow brother of theirs having three wives, they also want to follow the brother’s footsteps without knowing if the brother is indeed taking care and showing equality between the women. The author says this because some men like to use and see women as ornaments which is not right, self-centered, and mean of them claiming it is Sunnah. The ones who want to mimic their fellow men forget that they don’t know what the women are feeling or going through in their marital homes. As Yorubas say “?kunrin a niyan nile, w?n ma wa d?ka lamu nita” which means that men would be satisfied in their houses, but covetousness would make them go suffer outside their houses. This is applicable because some women who are about engaging in a polygamous marriage, are not all two faced and pretentious souls that they behave nicely and the next minute, they bring out their real selves. Such women would not do anything wrong in front of their husbands, which because of this, the men would think they have found women better than their first wives as the second set of females would behave nicely in front of the men. These same wicked women tend to maltreat the children of their husbands if either the mom or dad or even both parents are not present. 

After evaluating the men’s parts in the issue of polygamous marriages, the author would like to focus on the first wives, as they are called Awwal in the Arabic language. Awwal means first in the Arabic language. Islam doesn’t require a man to inform his wife that he is remarrying which can be supported by a Yoruba idiom which goes thus: J? ki n pe meji obinrin o denu which denotes women are jealous of each other. The author would like to urge and advise men to inform the first wives because some individuals don’t have strong shock absorbers. Audubillah Mina Shaitanir Rajim means (May Allah Azzawajal forbid a bad thing and guide us from Satan/Iblis or Shaitan (Arabic) or E?u (Yoruba), would the man want to be the cause of his wife’s mental retardation and have her death on his neck? The obvious answer is a resounding NO because he would still love and care for her. Apart from the woman becoming psychologically unstable, it shows that he respects, loves and cares for her. One important thing the author sees mostly in the cases of these polygamous marriages is that the men tend to take women who their wives know and put their trusts in as second wives, which to her is madness and wickedness. As Yorubas say "biku le o ba pa ni, tode o le payan", "arale ?ni lo n ??ku payan", "?ni teniyan gbarale lo n ??ku pani'' apply to this issue because all these idioms talk about betrayal from a trusted friend which are the incoming wives.Why would you choose a woman who has become a part and parcel of your wife of all women out in the society if you even wish to remarry? Yorubas call such people (both parties) aw?n alapasaye because they both have killed the wife emotionally, mentally, and physically. What baffles and angers the penner of this article is that the known and entrusted women don’t have an iota of pity, sympathy and empathy to the victims. That right there to the author is a deliberate act of wickedness that such oppressors can poison the oppressed if care is not taken by the victims. 

The author of this article has always despised polygamous marriages and does not see or consider materialistic things as important when it comes to marriage as she knows Allah Azzawajal is ArRazaq (The Sustainer) that she says she would rather and doesn’t care to marry a single brother as far as he meets her criteria. Being in a polygamous marriage is bad and wicked to her because of six reasons. 1. She doesn’t want to be the cause of sorrow for another woman’s marriage and children (if any)‘s happiness 2. She hates doing things she can’t take herself 3. She hates cheating and taking things that don’t belong to her 4. She is not capable of trouble making so she tries to distance herself from trouble 5. She prefers to start her marriage with a man who she can siregun on rather than a man thinking of, looking at and seeing her as a gold digger or a thief and 6. She doesn’t take what she doesn’t like. Yorubas say polygamous marriages are troubling and problematic which is true because one wife equals a dilemma, not to talk of more than one woman for a man as Queens in his palace. 

It is a saddening situation that men don’t use their thinking processes (Number 6) to know that women can never be understood no matter how long they both lived even if it were a millennial year (which is impossible because no one can reach a thousand year before death/Maut or Mawt/Iku takes him or her. If they (the men) can comprehend that and take that as a fact, there would not be a need for them to be in a polygamous marriage. Some women are the reasons why their husbands are or want to engage in polygamous marriages like she has discussed in one of her articles, but as a recap, she would give two or three ways wives push their husbands to go marry second, third or fourth wives. 1. The women always nag. Men hate nagging and complaining wives because they believe that the women are showing lack of gratitude and appreciation 2. The women are insolent and indolent. A woman being too loquacious would have trouble with her husband because he would think one day, she can insult him and his family out of anger and laziness comes in play because men love food as they say the best way to get to a man is his stomach and they abhor filth that some of them believe that the wives should be domesticated in other words, be housewives. These reasons to the writer of this article are indeed valid, but men marry other wives to show their masculinity and to show their worths as husbands which is unfair, wicked and selfish to the wives in the viewpoint of the penner of this writing. 

The author would like to urge community Sheiks and Imams to lecture men right on and prior to them engaging in polygamous marriages and the parents, especially the mothers of the wives of these men who are in or on the verge of taking of other wives should educate their daughters on how best to treat and respect their husbands. Not all women in marriages are not with their right senses, but the majority of these men are just olojukomol? (people who are never satisfied with what they have).