More wives = less adultery and prostitution?

RAWANG, Nov 14 — Don’t marry young virgin girls; marry single mothers or widows instead. This was a suggestion made recently by a Kelantan state official to would-be polygamists.

But the idea drew flak from some critics, who said instead that more efforts should be made to reduce divorce rates and assist single mothers.

The issue of polygamy is being hotly debated now, with the controversial Kelantan official’s suggestion and the emergence of a Polygamy Club founded in August by the wife of a polygamist.

Hatijah Aam, 55, said she started the club with the aim of curbing social ills such as prostitution and adultery. It has 300 members.

“After sharing the same man for 30 years, we are like sisters,” Hatijah told The Straits Times. Sitting beside her, Noraziah Ibrahim, 52, the younger wife of Hatijah’s husband, smiled.

Noraziah met Hatijah’s husband after her own partner had died.

“She had children to feed. Can you imagine? She needed help,” said Hatijah.

The two are married to 72-year-old Ashaari Muhammad, patriarch of a clan spawned from five marriages — he has since divorced one wife, while another died in a car accident while on a pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca in 2003.

Of his 38 children, 19 sons and four daughters are also polygamists. Ashaari has 200 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.

“Some people think polygamy is bad, but it is actually a beautiful thing,” said Hatijah.

Most Malaysians remember Ashaari as having led a deviant Islamic sect that was banned in 1994 because of his claims that he was able to absolve sins, and that an Islamic messiah from the east would appear ahead of a prophesied doomsday.

Ashaari suffered a stroke in 2003, and is now unable to speak. His third wife was not present at the interview as she was tending to him.

The family’s story is just one example of polygamous marriages in Malaysia.

Muslim men are allowed up to four wives under Islamic law. Critics say the practice is cruel and has been distorted from its original purpose.

The practice was prevalent during Prophet Muhammad’s era to provide for the many widows and orphans, as a consequence of men dying in frequent wars.

Activists say most modern polygamists in Malaysia marry younger women and neglect their first wives.

While Hatijah’s family seems to be living harmoniously, rights groups argue that most polygamous families suffer abuse and jealousy.

Sisters in Islam (SIS), a non-governmental organisation which upholds the rights of Muslim women and campaigns against the practice, says polygamy is not a solution to prostitution.

“Marriage — whether polygamous or not — cannot be a cure-all for an issue as complex as sex work,” SIS programme manager Masjaliza Hamzah told The Straits Times.

“Society should stop seeing marriage as the one-stop answer to the issues and concerns faced not only by women sex workers, but also single mothers, widows and older women.”

She quoted verses from the Quran which discourage polygamy, and pointed out that although Prophet Muhammad practised it, he did not allow his son-in-law to marry another woman unless he divorced the Prophet’s daughter.

Only 2.8 per cent of Muslim marriages here are polygamous.

Different states also have varying criteria for would-be polygamists.

Kuala Lumpur requires a written consent or views from existing wives. In Perak, a man’s promise to treat wives fairly is sufficient.

Hanafiah Hamzah, a 53-year-old television cameraman, said strangers look down on him for having more than one wife. “Society looks down on polygamists. People always think it is for the sex,” he told The Straits Times.

Hanafiah married his first wife, who is now 47, two decades ago. Seven years later, he married his second wife, now 36.

While both wives are cordial to each other, he admits it is not easy.

“You cannot be fair to both of them. If a wife or a child is sick, who do you go to?

“If my friends say they want to be polygamous, I always tell them, you better not. My first wife never used to complain, but now she gets frustrated easily. It is my mistake,” he said.

Masjaliza said there is some stigma attached to the practice: “People don’t wear it like a badge of honour. There is a level of discomfort. Maybe people are ashamed.”

Indeed, while some top leaders in the ruling Umno and the opposition PAS have more than one wife, most of them attend official functions accompanied by only one wife.

But this is not deterring Hatijah, who is branching out Polygamy Club to Indonesia.

The government has warned that the club could be a ploy.

The family has been ‘trying very hard to deceive the public’ into reviving the banned religious cult through religious, business and social activities, Wan Mohamad Sheikh Abdul Aziz, director-general of the Department of Islamic Development Malaysia, told the New Straits Times. — Straits Times