Harry's Place

MEMORIES OF LIFE IN TAIF

In practice, polygamous households contain a senior wife and her – rather older – children and a junior wife with a baby or maybe two very young children.

The husband comes home after a long day of training the Saudi National Guard in parade-ground drill and both wives greet him at the door, screaming about the shortcomings and behaviour of the other wife.

The older children shout, cry and join in; the babies start howling and screaming.

A vido showing this would make would-be polygamists think long and hard.

Jsh scholar will be disappointed by the replies, if there are any.

Such decadent hank-panky is very much haram, in the eyes of those versed in the permissible and impermissible.

However in Islamic culture having multiple wives is more responsibility than a right.

No shit! The credit card bills! The “Does my bum (yes, bum) look big in this?” Getting outvoted when footie and Pop Idol are on TV at the same time! The mothers-in-law! (Imagine the material Les Dawson could have had!

Lol, my comment was delete!

You uptight prudes!

So British!

Just love that “however”.

My diet says that I eat five kilos of cakes every monring. However eating cakes entails great responsibility towards my purse.

I wonder what the MAB think of this:

http://tendancecoatesy.wordpress.com/2009/10/07/diversity-dilemma-no-200001-can-religious-football-teams-play-gays/

Just love that “however”.

Yup. It’s the same “however” used to exculpate slavery.

The atavistic savagery of Islam is a tough row to hoe for the MAB: just as they can’t allow anything that Allah has forbidden, they can’t forbid anything that Allah has allowed. “However,” …

“The atavistic savagery of Islam is a tough row to hoe for the MAB: just as they can’t allow anything that Allah has forbidden, they can’t forbid anything that Allah has allowed. “However,” …”

Nonsense. Many religions “theoretically” permit polygamy. Few in the West practice it.

The MAB’s problem is a product of their narrow and stupid Islamist doctrine.

Meh to be serious a moment, the problem with Islam is that they don’t give women equal rights, not that they allow more than 2 people to marry.

What exactly is the principle involved that make a marriage with more than 2 people “atavistic” or “savage”?

Go ahead, reason your way through a defense of such judgements, if you can think of even one reason.

It would be too much to ask people who can’t think of a reason to admit that fact, I’m sure.

Men have to protect their families and it is the duty of the husband to provide his wife and children with food, clothes, a home and medical treatment according to his financial position and income.

And of course, if he can’t be arsed he can just divorce her by saying “See ya, wouldnt wanna be ya” three times.

Far from being a practical polygamists handbook it reads exactly like a theoretical / theological position to me albeit wrapped in a highly sweetened and soft focus essay.

And of course, if he can’t be arsed he can just divorce her by saying “See ya, wouldnt wanna be ya” three times.

In Britain he has equal divorce rights with his wife, correct? So what are you on about?

I’d support a law allowing polygamy as long as it equally allowed a woman to have four husbands… or for that matter any combination of genders, including alloweing a woman to have four wifes, or two wives and an husand.

I don’t think the state really should get involved in how consenting adults choose to arrange their domestic affairs beyond providing legal frameworks in which these can be codified to enable just and equitable outcomes to whatever contract is entered into… much like setting up/disolving any partnership or company.

I suppose I should thank Brett, though perhaps he would have said the same without my prompting.

The notion of letting adults act like adults and arrange whatever martial unions they see fit to arrange is all well and good until the social welfare issue arises.

What Brett mentions IS polygamy. What some muslims practice is polygyny, not polygamy.

Many religions “theoretically” permit polygamy

Not the proper ones.

I don’t think the state really should get involved in how consenting adults choose to arrange their domestic affairs beyond providing legal frameworks in which these can be codified to enable just and equitable outcomes to whatever contract is entered into… much like setting up/disolving any partnership or company.

Certain arrangements are more to be encouraged than others, because they are for the public good. Polygamy, which belongs in the desert and the jungle, is appallingly bad for women and children, and should not be given any kind of legal sanction whatsoever.

As the MAB currently sits on the quango, the Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board, we can expect that association to be short lived, if the Tories win at the next election.

Vote Tory!

No polygamy here just some good balancing skills.

Unique Matriarch Society Documented in New Book
Today, four million Minangkabau, one of the largest ethnic groups in Indonesia, live in the highlands of the province of West Sumatra. Their society, Dr. Sanday discovered, is founded on the coexistence of matrilineal custom and a nature-based philosophy called adat. More recently, Islam was incorporated into the foundation. Despite the recent outbreak of violence associated with Islamist ideologies in many parts of the world, Dr. Sanday describes a peaceable, almost violence-free Minangkabau society.

http://www.albionmonitor.com/0205a/matriarchy.html

The MAB’s problem is a product of their narrow and stupid Islamist doctrine.

Still clueless after all this time. You still think the Qur’an is “just a book”; like, say, the Bible. The worst part isn’t that you have no idea of the why of the “narrow” and “stupid”. It’s that you’ve convinced yourself that you do.

What exactly is the principle involved that make a marriage with more than 2 people “atavistic” or “savage”?

Atavistic because polygamy — correctly polygyny, as has been pointed out — is a throwback to the past where men taking proprietorial interest in women was condoned as normal. And savage because in polygynous societies the pervasive subjugation of women — often also in effect held to ransom by the attendant precarious status of their children — is well known.

But my use of “atavistic savagery” applied to Islam as a whole. It is a “religion” invented by a bandit warlord to enthuse and inculcate thuggery in his followers. Even 1400 years of sugar coating haven’t covered the evil at the core of it.

There’s no wrong about poligamy as long as the goals is on the line

As the MAB currently sits on the quango, the Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board, we can expect that association to be short lived, if the Tories win at the next election.

I’m not usually a Tory supporter, but I might just give them my vote on this basis.

BTW, if any Muslims want 4 wives, they can go and live in an Islamic country that permits it.

Live long…

So to Josh and Brett’s point, in a (secular) world where all people are equal irrespective of colour, gender, sexuality etc. what is wrong with polygamy? I actually can’t think of any compelling reasons why it should be banned…..

ag:

So to Josh and Brett’s point, in a (secular) world where all people are equal irrespective of colour, gender, sexuality etc. what is wrong with polygamy?

It’s illegal!

But I see your point.

As someone who has had a long term relationship with a Pakistani Muslim woman I can personally vouch that Muslim polygamy is in defacto existence in 21 st century UK.

More than a few of this womans relatives had your bog standard marriage recognised by English law. However they also had other spouses (generally only 1 more) who’d they’d married according to Islamic laws and traditions only – not recognised by English law.

From what I gleaned of these polygamous marriages – harmony was not a byword for them.

From what I gleaned of these polygamous marriages – harmony was not a byword for them.

Well a word more. In Islam the first wife has no say over whether or who the husband marries next, so by my lights it isn’t a marriage at all since it isn’t voluntary.

In at least one Islamic society, they frown on women riding on the back seat of motorbikes. It would be comic if it wasn’t so serious. http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3786802,00.html

Polygamus societies tend be be violent societies; instead of there being compitition amongst males for a equal number of females, a huge cohort of young females is removed from society. The upshot is that older, wealther men compete with the young and you end up with huge numbers of young, sexually fustrated, males.

Ban marriage.

Simples.

In Islam the first wife has no say over whether or who the husband marries next, so by my lights it isn’t a marriage at all since it isn’t voluntary.

That does not make sense.

The second marriages (third or forth ones were virtually unheard of) were voluntary in that the husband and second wife got married of their own volition. The first wife’s concerns, with regards to the extra spouse, were never taken into account, apparently.

“That does not make sense.”

A civilized polygamous marriage is one family, not separate arrangements between a man and wives who don’t care about each other.

For it to be a real marriage, the people already in it have to have veto power over anyone new coming in, or, better, bringing in people has to be wanted by all members.

The first wife married one man. If he marries someone else against her wishes, she’s been forced into a new, polygamous marriage.

Her old marriage was voluntary but her new one isn’t!

A civilized polygamous marriage

No such thing. It’s the custom of primitives.

OP, I noticed that you backed your assertion up with absolutely nothing at all. It’s because of people like you that I wrote “it would be too much to ask people who can’t think of a reason to admit that fact, I’m sure.”

Interesting statistic I found on wikipedia, the estimates of the percentage of gay couples that have non-monogamous arrangements is between 30 and 67%

“Non-monogamous arrangements” are one thing. These are nothing to do with the law. But polygamy has everything to do with the law.

Polygamy is not an “anything goes”, “live and let live” arrangement. It is legalised, institutionalised subordiation of women in the most cruel way possible. And it is based on a tribal, primitive belief system that views women as men’s property.

It is despicable and indefensible.

Polygamy is not an “anything goes”, “live and let live” arrangement. It is legalised, institutionalised subordiation of women in the most cruel way possible. And it is based on a tribal, primitive belief system that views women as men’s property.

If you had bothered to read the comment of mine that you attacked, you would find that I was supporting something entirely different than an Arab style polygamous marriage. I had separated the issues so as not to confuse unrelated things.

In fact, if you had bothered to continue reading the comment that you dismissed on its first sentence you would find that I was also attacking the sort of marriage where women are possessions rather than equal partners.

Your attacks are based on a refusal to separate unrelated issues so you can smear everything with a broad brush. We actually agree about marriages where women are chattel, and we agree that Arabs threat women as chattel.

However there is no reason not to separate this from the issue of whether a marriage can have more than two members.

As for that law, I’m not talking about oppressive laws in hell-holes where women are property, I’m talking about what the law should be in civilized societies.

That should read “treat women as chattel” not “threat women as chattel”

I’m talking about what the law should be in civilized societies.

If a society gives an uncivilised custom legal sanction, then it is no longer a civilised society.

Once again you have refused to recognize that I separated the uncivilized aspects of Arab marriage from civilized forms of polygamy.

Obviously you must be very happy that Arabs practice an exploitive form of polygamy, because otherwise you couldn’t pretend that this is the only possible form of polygamy and you’d be forced to argue about polygamy honestly.

How can there be a form of polygamy – where one man is allowed several women but not vice versa – that is not exploititive? Is there any society on earth that legalises polygamy that actually works?

And don’t give me the polygyny/polyandry argument. It only works one way. Legalise polygamy and women will have no choice in the matter, with disastrous – Arab-style – consequences. Huge families, all dependent on the state, child rape, totally disfunctional, incestuous – and that’s just the Mormons.

Polygamy is disgusting.

If you bothered to read my comments carefully (and you look up the dictionary definition of “polygamy”) you would have noticed that I never supported polygyny.

You’re arguing that members of a sub-culture with oppressive and sexist attitudes and a bad religion and will suffer because of their beliefs unless we prevent the rest of society from having a reasonable freedom.

I say that if you want to prevent a sub-culture with oppressive beliefs from causing suffering then you should educate people away from those beliefs. Just passing laws to try to straight-jacket them (and everyone else) is an unjust solution.

educate people away from those beliefs.

Quite. Teach people that polygamy – like FGM, honour killing and all the other multicultural “enrichment” belongs in the desert, the jungle, or the past.

Our superior Western civilisation has managed perfectly well without this revolting barbarism. Why spoil it?

Polygamy isn’t disguisting.. As long as you could fair for all, and you able doing that so it’s ok. But if you can do that, so DON’T

Ok, I’ve learned better than to argue with OP. Her arguments are all pose.

“God help us!”

Screw God and pass the ridicule, polygamy is against the Law, isn’t it, if you want polygamy go and live in a country that allows polygamy.

Simple really, if you don’t want to abide by the laws of the land, then go and live in another land.

Shit, do you think I am a polygamophobic?

Simple really, if you don’t want to abide by the laws of the land, then go and live in another land.

In other words, get stuffed if you don’t like the libel laws in the UK. You can bugger off to Saudi Arabia or wherever it is that they have libel laws that you agree with.

I suppose Emily Pankhurst and Rosa Parks would have benefitted from Anaximader’s simple advice too if they’d had a bloody clue!