Polygamy in the West Today<\/strong><\/h4>\nThe Western attitude towards polygamy is ethnocentric and hypocritical. The point that is often misunderstood in the West is that women in other cultures – especially African and Islamic – do not necessarily look at polygamy as a sign of women\u2019s degradation. Consequently, to equate polygamy with degrading women is an ethnocentric judgment of other societies. The ethnocentric revulsion for polygamy is best reflected in US Supreme Court\u2019s 1878 opinion in Reynolds vs. United States. The court refused to recognize polygamy as a legitimate religious practice, dismissing it as \u201calmost exclusively a feature of the life of Asiatic and African people.\u201d In later decisions, the court declared polygamy to be \u201ca blot on our civilization\u201d and compared it to human sacrifice and \u201ca return to barbarism.\u201d Most tellingly, the court found that the practice is \u201ccontrary to the spirit of Christianity and of the civilization which Christianity has produced in the Western World.\u201d[3]<\/p>\n
In the West today, it is common for married men to have extramarital relations with mistresses, girlfriends, and prostitutes. Consequently, the Western claim to monogamy[4] is a misnomer. How common are they? Estimates range between 23-50% men and 13-50% women in the US had an extramarital affair during their lifetimes. More than 15% of all husbands say they have had a series of affairs, and nearly 70% of married men younger than 40 expect to have an extramarital relationship.[5]<\/p>\n
The fact that Western concept of monogamy is based on double-standards can be illustrated with an example. Cohabiting women is legal, socially acceptable, and even mass-marketable for airing as a reality TV show, but a polygamous marriage involving moral and financial responsibility towards a woman and her children is considered socially immoral and illegal! There are even some who support \u201copen marriages\u201d, in which each spouse is free to have \u201cextramarital\u201d partners. Playboy magazine\u2019s November 2005 edition displays its 80 year old founder-owner, Hugh Hefner\u2019s three live-in women. This is in co-ordination with a reality TV show on E! called, \u201cGirls Next Door.\u201d Cameras follow his three \u201cofficial\u201d girlfriends as they live with him essentially as \u201cwives;\u201d they just lack a government marriage license.<\/p>\n
Monogamy does not protect women, but the men who exploit her. Polygamy protects the interests of women and children in society. Man is opposed to polygamy, not because monogamy is moral, but because he wants to satisfy his desire for variety by indulging in unlimited adultery. Sin, not fidelity, has taken the place of polygamy. That is why man is opposed to plurality of wives which commits him to many duties and responsibilities, financial and otherwise. Monogamy allows him to enjoy extra-marital affairs without obligatory economic consequences. He can \u201cplay around\u201d without taking responsibility for his sexual conduct. Legalized polygamy would require him to spend on his additional wives and their offspring.<\/p>\n
Birth control and the ease of abortion have opened sex for fun to Western women. But she is still the one who suffers the trauma of abortion and the side effects of birth control methods. If a man wishes to have a second wife he takes care of, whose children carry his name, he is considered a criminal who may be sentenced to years in jail. However, if he has numerous mistresses and illegitimate children his relation is left unpunishable in many countries.<\/p>\n
In the past, even for a licentious man, opportunities for sin were limited. That is why he had to take recourse to polygamy and, in spite of some evading their many duties, he still had to shoulder certain responsibilities in respect to his wives and children. Today, a man who has ample opportunities of enjoyment does not see any necessity of making the least commitment; hence, his aversion to polygamy.<\/p>\n
The hypocrisy of the West towards polygamy can also be seen in the fact that taking a second wife, even with the free consent of the first wife, is a violation of Western law. On the other hand, cheating on the wife, without her knowledge or consent, is legitimate in the eyes of the law. What is the legal wisdom behind such a contradiction? Is the law designed to reward deception and punish honesty? It is an unfathomable paradox of the modern \u2018civilized\u2019 world. Furthermore, homosexuality is legal, but polygamy is illegal and, in some cases, criminal.<\/p>\n
Moreover, on top of leaving a substantial number of women \u2018on the shelf\u2019 by denying their attachment to a man as a second wife, western nations further deprive surplus woman of the male sex by legalizing homosexuality. It is inhuman to have a woman as a second wife, according to these biased standards, but if the second \u201cwife\u201d happens to be a male \u201cmistress,\u201d then it is not a crime. Homosexuality, we are told, is an acceptable lifestyle in conformity with the requirements of the modern man! The Western attitude is the logical outcome of rejecting God\u2019s revelation that brings harmony between human beings and their innate nature.<\/p>\n
Footnotes:
\n[1] (http:\/\/eclectic.ss.uci.edu\/~drwhite\/worldcul\/Codebook4EthnoAtlas.pdf)
\n[2] Peggy Fletcher Stack, \u201cGlobally, Polygamy Is Commonplace,\u201d The Salt Lake Tribune 20 Sep. 1998.
\n[3] Jonathan Turley, \u201cPolygamy Laws Expose Our Own Hypocrisy,\u201d USA Today 3 Oct. 2004. Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington Law School.
\n[4] Webster\u2019s Heritage Dictionary, \u201cThe practice or condition of having a single sexual partner during a period of time.\u201d
\n[5] Laurel Richardson, \u201cAnother World; More and More Single Women Are Opting for Affairs with Married Men, and the Trend Is Diminishing Feminist Progress,\u201d Psychology Today, vol. 20, February 1986.
\n\u201cExtramarital Affairs Are Not So Common\u201d; USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), vol. 126, May 1998.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nSource: https:\/\/www.islamland.com\/eng\/articles\/polygamy-in-the-world-and-the-west<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Polygamy in the global community is common, normal and accepted. According to the Ethnographic Atlas Codebook[1] derived from George P. Murdock\u2019sEthnographic Atlas recorded the marital composition of 1231 societies, from 1960-1980. Of these societies, 186 societies were monogamous. 1041 were polygynous. According to Joseph Ginat, the author of \u2018Polygamous Families in Contemporary Society,\u2019 a third … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[119],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misconceptions"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"gform-image-choice-sm":false,"gform-image-choice-md":false,"gform-image-choice-lg":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Site Admin","author_link":"https:\/\/www.ask-a-muslim.com\/en\/author\/admin2\/"},"uagb_comment_info":10,"uagb_excerpt":"Polygamy in the global community is common, normal and accepted. According to the Ethnographic Atlas Codebook[1] derived from George P. Murdock\u2019sEthnographic Atlas recorded the marital composition of 1231 societies, from 1960-1980. Of these societies, 186 societies were monogamous. 1041 were polygynous. According to Joseph Ginat, the author of \u2018Polygamous Families in Contemporary Society,\u2019 a third…","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcT0IL-1L5","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8590,"url":"https:\/\/www.ask-a-muslim.com\/de\/jonathan-abdilla-ex-christ-canada\/","url_meta":{"origin":6763,"position":0},"title":"Jonathan Abdilla, Ex-Christ, Canada","author":"Site Admin","date":"06\/20\/2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Ich f\u00fchle mich geehrt, ein Muslim zu sein\u2026Und so f\u00fchle ich mich aus verschiedenen Gr\u00fcnden. Es gibt viele Normen in der Gesellschaft, in der ich lebe, die genau das Gegenteil dessen sind, wie Muslime es tun. 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