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TechnoratiLegalising polygamy for Muslims
Polygamy is a consensual arrangement among adults, says an Australian Muslim leader, so what can the West have against it?
An Australian Islamic leader has announced that polygamous marriages should be recognised by the Australian government. Keysar Trad from the Islamic Friendship Association of Australia said that polygamous relationships in the Muslim community should be legalised, because this would make things safer for Muslim women.
"If this woman has wilfully chosen to enter into this relationship and make a lifelong commitment to this person to be married, it [polygamy] shouldn't matter,” said Mr Trad. “If it was a business and the business had four partners we'd recognise that, but why don't we recognise it when it comes to consensual relationships amongst adults?" His thoughts were echoed by Sheikh Khalil Chami of the Islamic Welfare Centre in Sydney who also said polygamous marriages should be recognised in Australia.
This raises what many consider to be the two major assaults on the Judeo-Christian West today: from without, the push for sharia law; from within, the push to redefine the institution of marriage. Both are major areas of concern, and both must be firmly resisted.
All true Muslims want to see the rule of Allah spread throughout the earth, and want all infidels to submit to his laws. And bit by bit we see the encroachment of sharia law in Western nations. We even have Christian leaders such as the Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams saying that at least partial recognition of sharia in countries like the UK is inevitable.
Increasingly, Western societies are ceding freedoms in order to placate Muslim minorities. And given the fact that Muslims tend to have larger families than non-Muslims, many are predicting that Muslim majorities will rule in many Western nations before the century is out. Indeed, one recent headline put it this way: "Britain to be an Islamic State by 2038".
It is quite reasonable, then, to see the move to legalise Muslim polygamy as part of the greater spread of Islam throughout the Western world. At the moment it does not look as though there is much to stop it gaining momentum.
Turning to the West’s internal culture war, for years we have been battling various attacks on the institution of marriage. When there was debate over allowing de facto relationships to have similar status to married couples, pro-family forces warned this would be the thin end of the wedge, and that the next thing would be demands for same-sex relationship recognition. Of course they were laughed out of court.
And when same-sex unions were recognised, pro-family forces said the next logical step will be to legalise polygamy. We too were ridiculed and mocked for suggesting such things. But one simply has to google the word “polyamory” to see that this is no laughing matter.
There are voices all over the world – including those of academics, lawyers and other elites – calling for the recognition of group love and/or group marriage. Indeed, if we accept the logic of same-sex marriage, then the logic of polygamy is identical.
Both involve adults freely entering into a sexual relationship. These are consensual unions, the apologists will argue, and hurting no one else. So why not? The case for polygamy is based on the very same premises as the case for same-sex marriage. And if Muslims are now arguing for it, it seems that it is just a matter of time before the entire institution of heterosexual marriage is cast onto the scrap-heap of history.
Muslim men today in Australia have up to four wives, as they are allowed in the Koran. Many of these extra wives are already getting government (that is, taxpayer funded) benefits, especially in the Sydney area. Muslim men think this is all fine. One newspaper account says this: "Mr Trad's mother was a third wife in a polygamous relationship overseas and he said the women had admiration and respect for each other and supported each other." Most women in polygamous affairs would beg to differ.
Most Muslim women despise such arrangements, and usually there is one woman that is singled out for special treatment by the husband, while the other three languish. It is this inequality of love and affection which makes polygamy so miserable for the majority of women involved in it. Jealousy, tensions and strife are common in such scenarios.
On the radio I heard a Muslim defending polygamy. He said he wanted to enter into a relationship with a woman (although he was already married) and he thought the right thing would be to marry this other woman. But what about doing the right thing by his wife? How does she feel that his love is "shared" among many? Why not look after her rights and interests?
Polygamy is all about the lusts of the males, not the wellbeing of the females. Right now polygamy is illegal in Australia. To legalise it will not only set in cement the misery many Muslim women already experience, but it will be a further nail in the coffin of heterosexual marriage, and the near universal principle of one man, one woman for life.
It remains to be seen how well received this recommendation will be. Many politicians are already overly sensitive to, and worried about, Muslim feelings. Thus many might be tempted to go along with this idea. And the fact of political correctness, along with the homosexual war on marriage, will simply add more pressure for legalised polygamy to gain further currency amongst our ruling elites.
The war against marriage has just got more intense. What is needed more than ever are leaders with common sense, guts and principle to make a stand before it is too late. Whether such leaders still exist is the question of the hour.
Bill Muehlenberg is the Secretary of the Family Council of Victoria, Australia, and a lecturer in ethics at several Melbourne theological colleges.
Not quite sure what this discussion about the Catholic Church has to do with polygamy. Last I check, the Catholic Church has been the biggest supporter of a radical monogamy.
Whatever the issue, some want to turn it into a debate about the Catholic Church.
Anyway, Mr. Muehlenberg believes that the problem is one of courage and leadership. As I stated, I disagree. I think the problem is a lack of any guiding secular principles. Other than “ick” and fumes from a discarded Christian morality, Western societies reject tradition and have no reason to support a stand against polygamy.
non-sequitur, it does not follow. Of course it follows. Why would the Church force women into the anterior role if it didn’t believe women to be incapable of leading men. In that respect, the Church treats women as if they were children. I know the Bible supports your position, but, in this case, the Bible is just wrong.
David Page, your comment seems to be a non-sequitur with no connection or relevance to my comment whatsoever, but is simply a senseless unfounded accusation that I advocated something which I clearly oppose.
Ronk, what your advocating is to keep women in a state of perpetual childhood.
To say that “in the Catholic Church, men are in charge” is just spin. It’s nonsense to assert that in the Catholic Church men must be generally in charge of women. Very often in the Church the reverse is true.
In fact, as it did most of the good ideas it is accused of opposing, the Catholic Church invented the idea that men and women are equal.
Catholics, men and women alike, are obliged to obey Christ, the Head of the Catholic Church, and His appointed representatives the Pope, bishops and parish priests, who comprise less than 1% of the male population. NOT because we are unequal to them, but because that is the (often thankless, difficult and painful) role God gave them. Just as Christ Himself is perfectly obedient to His Father, who is His equal.
Ronk said: “Mr Page, the Catholic Church teaches that men and women are equal. NOT that they are identical and interchangeable.”
Ronk, I’m sorry I can’t accept your ‘through the looking glass’ view of gender equality. In the Catholic Church, men are in charge. To say that there is equality in that is just spin.
Mr Page, the Catholic Church teaches that men and women are equal. NOT that they are identical and interchangeable. Please try to learn the difference and then you will hopefully not make such an outrageous accusation.
Aponte said: “The Judeo-Christian world view states that men and women are made equal in the image of God.”
Why, then, aren’t they equal in the eyes of the Catholic Church?
Western countries legalised widespread polygamy decades ago. The only condition being that all but one of the wives/husbands must have a slip of paper saying they are “divorced”, or were never legally married in the first place. Mr Trad’s proposal would actually be a slight improvement on the current situation. At least the state would stop paying “sole parents benefits” to people who are copulating and often being financially supported by a “partner”.
Hi David, In answer to your question: NO!
“Pure and simply, polygamy is based solely upon male domination and male selfishness, in spite of all the above pro-polygamy whining excuses and/or comparisons to this or that, which are all from men thinking only of themselves.”
An interesting combination of moralism and Marxism. Some feminists today and progressives of yore have made similar comments about monogamous marriage.
I am not a fan of polygamy; but I find that many comments about polygamy lack perspective.
As far as men thinking only of themselves, I do think that polygamists are no more prone to such disposition as other men or women.
As far as polygamy being uncivilized, I think that you confuse civilized with orthodox Christianity. Polygamy has been accepted in most societies throughout history. Today, a billion in Islam find polygamy acceptable. I think that Dubai, Damascus, Cairo and other centers of Islamic culture are civilized.
Comparing polygamy to other arrangements is unavoidable. Today, in my city, my neighbors find it acceptable for a local celebrity to have 14 children with 9 different women. He married one of the women. He told the children by the other women “not to call him Dad.”
Polygamy is an imperfect solution but we have abandoned the better alternative and live with worse alternatives in the name of freedom.
To David:
People in all kinds of societies have suppressed the weaker. One example of domination is the way males dominate females. We can observe this type of domination in all societies, be it a “Jewish”, “Christian”, “Hindu”, “Mohammaden”, “communist”, “atheistic”, etc… society. This characteristic of human domination over other humans is not religious specific, but rather an expression of humanity’s fallen nature.
Where one can see contrast if one wants to take a deeper look is in the fundamental teachings of a certain world view. For example, secularism speaks of “equality” between peoples, sexes, sexual preferences… So far so good. However it can not define a secular meaning for “equal” since our physical nature does not bespeak of equality. Or it posits that homosexual relations are “equal” to heterosexual acts. How? These two types of sexual behaviour are fundamentally different. Equal in goodness? Again, secularisms can not state this since it is secular; good and bad can not be defined.
The Judeo-Christian world view states that men and women are made equal in the image of God. This means that there equality does not stem from their physical nature or how they wish to behave sexually. The Catholic Church raises only one human to extreme heights of veneration, and that is Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ. This veneration is not just a culturally catholic thing, but has been recognized and officially defined as doctrine. This is pretty strange for an institution that is always being accused of being run by dominating men.
Pure and simply, polygamy is based solely upon male domination and male selfishness, in spite of all the above pro-polygamy whining excuses and/or comparisons to this or that, which are all from men thinking only of themselves. I spent many years working in medicine among all varying types of humanity including the so-called humanity whining like the spoiled and pampered children above who are either so stupid and/or so selfish they’ll lie their way through whatever their thoughtless and uncaring polygamous greed craves for. Down through history we find bunches of people engaging in polygamy due to ignorance of civilized behavior…
David Page says,“ The Catholic Church believe women should be subservient to men, because David wrote this I do not believe he has read anything that the Catholic Church has written on marriage like the The Catechism of the Catholic Church, where point 2365 written by St. John Chrysostom explains how young husband should treat their wife. He says “young husbands should say to to their wives: I have taken you in my arms, and I love you, and prefer you to my life itself. For the present life is nothing, and my most ardent dream is to spend it with you in such a way that we may be assured of not being separated in the life reserved for us… I place you above all things, and nothing would be more bitter or painful to me than to be of a different mind than you.”In the Bible Tobias doesn’t even make love to his wife on the first night of their marriage, because he does not want lust, but sincerity. A true marriage is not about lust, its about a lasting love and respect. It is about respecting your spouses body and mind, through your life together that most probably will produce children. Gay marriage does not respect the human body, nor does artificial contraception, nor does masturbation. In a way sex can be compared with eating food. Eating drugs will cause the body to grow sick even though it can be pleasurable. Eating too much food can cause people to grow obese. Eating the right foods in moderation keeps he body and mind healthy. I have one of those lasting marriages. I don’t pretend to always live up to the high ideals that the Church teaches, but I do try. My husband and I have 11 children that span more than two decades. What we are learning through our family life is respect and commitment that is truly intimate and creative and pure, like what God’s love is like with each one of us. How is my marriage not mutual and equal?
Do you believe that male dominance should be, by law, a part of marriage.
No. Although, I’m not sure I quite understand what you mean by male dominance. I think marriage reduces male dominance in a conjugal relationship whether monogamous or polygamous.
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