While there is an uproar about the Islamic practice of a Man marrying Four wives, news comes out that Islamic women in UK are voluntarily getting marred as a Second wife, because they could not get a suitable match.
Gender equality at last!
Story:
Aisha laughs out loud at the thought of how her colleagues and clients would react if they knew she shares a husband. The laughter makes her loose hijab slip slightly, exposing a few strands of dark hair. “They would be dumbfounded and probably prurient,” she sniffs. As far as they are concerned, her 42-year-old factory-owning husband has only one wife—this thoughtful attorney sipping Earl Gray tea in the sitting room of a pleasant and very middle-class Edwardian house in a leafy residential road in northwest London.
Her immediate family and close Muslim friends know the truth: 41-year-old Aisha is a second wife and for three years has been conveniently—at least for her—sharing her businessman husband with his first bride. “It was my choice to marry him. There was no coercion.” With a wry giggle she says: “I wanted a partner and man-hunted for one using a marriage agency and this suits me.”
“I didn’t want to remain single and I wanted my relationship to be endorsed by my religion, so sleeping around or living with a non-Muslim wasn’t an option,” she says. “This works for me.”
Being a co-wife is a situation that apparently works for other successful British Muslim women, who have delayed marriage to build careers and discover that by the time they are ready for a husband, their age counts against them and they don’t have the pick of the crop. For them, sharing a husband is a practical solution that allows them a suitable partner and stable companionship all sanctioned by Islam.
And it has the added bonus of allowing the women to retain the independent lives they have developed for themselves during their single years. “I didn’t want a full-time husband,” Aisha says firmly.
She admits that the first wife, whom her husband married 15 years ago in an arranged union, wasn’t initially happy with the arrangement but has “come round,” although the two wives have little to do with each other and seldom meet. Aisha sees her husband on alternate days and nights—although if either of the two children from his first wife falls sick, or there’s a family emergency, Aisha will be compensated for any time lost as a result of timetable changes.
The unexpected trend of professional British Muslim women agreeing to become second or third wives has startled Islamic religious leaders, some of whom disapprove, and is now gaining political attention with British Conservative politicians vowing to stamp out the practice—although how theoretically they will accomplish this remains unclear. Under U.K. law multiple marriage is illegal, but co-wives are exploiting loopholes.
Related Articles
- Why I am an Islamic Feminist by Orbala (feminismandreligion.com)
Reblogged this on HINDUISM AND SANATAN DHARMA and commented:
Islam let men enjoy women before and after death does not matter if they are 6 year old kids like Ayesha of demonic prophet. Read more at http://shankhanad.blogspot.com/2015/01/paris-terrorism-happenning-in-india.html