The historical causes of polygyny (1)

What are the historical and social causes of polygyny? Why have numerous peoples of the world, especially the Orientals, adopted it while some peoples, like the occidentals, never adopted it? Why, out of the three forms of multiple marriages, was only polygyny accepted and favoured by people, unlike polyandry and sexual communism? The latter two forms were either never adopted, or else were very rarely resorted to and were by way of exception.

Until we closely examine these causes, we cannot discuss the Islamic view of polygyny and we also cannot properly study this question and how it has any bearing on present day human requirements.

If we overlook the numerous psychological and social considerations that exist, and think like many superficial writers, it is enough to explain and interpret the historical and social causes of polygyny according to the same well-played tune which is so often repeated in connection with these subjects. We also can say, “It is very obvious what the cause polygyny is, and what it was in the past. It is the tyranny and domination of man and the slavery of woman. The root-cause of it is the patriarchal system. As man has had the domineering position and has been the “sovereign” over woman, he has moulded all customs and rules in his favour. He has, accordingly, made polygyny a rule for his own benefit and against the interests of woman for centuries. As the woman has been under the subjugation of man, she could not establish polyandry as a custom in her favour. However, since the present age is an age of the decline of the tyranny of man, the privilege of taking several wives, like very many other wrongful privileges, is giving place to equality and to identical rights.”

If we form opinions like this it will be a very superficial and crude way of thinking. Neither has the cause of the custom of polygyny been the tyranny of man, nor has the cause of the failure of polyandry been the weakness and subjugation of women. Furthermore, neither is the cause of the decline in polygyny the fact that tyranny is on the decline, nor has man suffered any loss in giving up the distinction of having more than one wife. He rather earns an advantage for himself as opposed to woman.

I do not deny that the factor of force and authority was one that brought about changes in human history, and I also do not deny the fact that man, throughout history, had taken undue advantage of his authority over woman. Nevertheless, I do not believe force and authority to be the only factor, especially in the interpretation and explanation of the nature of the family relations of husband and wife. The idea that the use of force was the only force in shaping the history of mankind is due to a lack of insight.

Let us suppose, for a while, that the above viewpoint is correct. Then the rare and exceptional times when polyandry was common, like the pre-Islamic period among the Arabs, or in the days, according to Montesquieu, when it was adopted among the Naires of the coasts of Malabar, were occasions when woman had come into power, had taken her chance and seized the opportunity to impose polyandry upon man. These periods should consequently be regarded as the golden periods for woman, while, as a matter of fact, we know that the days of the pre-Islamic period were dark and awful days for the life of woman. In the preceding section we quoted from Montesquieu, that the custom of polyandry among the Naires was not on account of the authority and honour of woman. The decision was taken by that community for the purpose of keeping the soldiers away from family attachments and so as to maintain the spirit of valour.

Besides, if the cause of polygyny is the patriarchal system or the domination of man, why did occidentals not adopt it? Was patriarchy confined to the orient? Had occidentals so closely interwoven Jesus and Mary that from the beginning they believed in equality and identicalness of rights for woman and man? Was the factor of authority effective in the factor of authority effective in turning things in favour of man only in the orient, and, in the west, was that factor used only to uphold justice?

Western woman, half a century ago, was the most unfortunate woman in the world. Even in the matter of her own property, she required the guardianship of her husband. Occidentals themselves admit that in the Middle Ages eastern woman was far better off than western woman.

Gustave Le Bon [1] writes: “In the days of the Islamic civilization, women were given exactly the same position and status which European women held a long time after. This meant that after the chivalrous conduct of the Andalucian Arabs, the example was set to be propagated in Europe…... Among Europeans, chivalrous behaviour, an aspect of which is the gallant treatment of women, came down from the. Muslims, and was copied from them. The religion which was able to deliver woman from a low and inferior position and could raise her to a position of respect and honour was Islam and not Christianity, as is commonly imagined. For we see that in the Middle-ages our kings and monarchs had no respect for women, despite their being Christians. After the study of ancient histories, there remains no doubt that in the days before the Moslems taught our forefathers to have kindly feelings and respect for women, our kings and monarchs treated women with extreme brutality………. [2]

Others also have described, almost in the same terms, the condition of women in the Middle-ages. Why, then, in spite of patriarchy, and in spite of all those conditions for the force and authority of man being at their highest in Europe of the Middle-ages, was polygyny not adopted by man?

The real fact is that where polyandry was common, it was not because of chance and the authoritative hold of women over men, nor was the cause of the abolishing of polyandry the weakness and feebleness of woman, and further neither was the cause of the custom of polygyny in the Orient the force and domination of man, nor was the fact that there is no custom of polygyny in the West by virtue of the faith of occidentals in the equality of authority of woman and man.

The cause of the disappearance of polyandry:

The cause of the disappearance of polyandry is that it is not agreeable to the temperament of either man or of woman. As for man, it is incompatible, firstly, with his tendency towards exclusive and restricted attachment, and secondly, it is discordant with any certainty regarding the fatherhood of the children, on the basis of which attachment to them is a natural and instinctive urge in man. A human being naturally wants to reproduce, and he wants the connection with the future and the past generations to be specified and clearly defined, the wants to know for certain which child he is the father of, and who is his own father. Polyandry is thus unfitting for the human temperament and instinct, while polygamy injures the feelings of neither man nor woman in this respect.

It is said that a group of women, about forty in number, assembled and presented themselves before ‘Ali (a.s) and put this question to him: “Why Islam does allows man to have more than one wife, and why does it not allow woman to have more than one husband? And is this not an unjust discrimination?” ‘Ali ordered small cups of water to be fetched and every one of those women was handed one cup of water. He then asked the women to pour all that water into a big bowl that was put in the middle of the gathering. The women accordingly poured the water in the bowl, and then Ali (a.s) asked each one of them to fill up their cup with water again, but stipulated that every one of them should take out the very same water that she had previously had in her cup and had poured into the bowl. They all asked how that would be possible. The water had become mixed up and separation was impossible. Ali (a.s.) then said that if woman had several husbands she would necessarily have sexual intercourse with everyone of them, and then she would be pregnant. How then, he asked, would it be possible to distinguish whose child it was? That is from the point of view of man.

As for the point of view of woman, polyandry is inconsistent with her nature and is also against her interests. A woman does not require man only as a source of, or as a factor in, the satisfaction of her sexual urges, so that it may be said ‘the more the merrier’. A woman wants a man whose heart will be in her hand. He should be her protector and defender. He should be self-denying and devoted to her. He should take effort to bring in money, to present the fruits of his toils and earnings to her, and should look after her with tender care. The money which a man used to pay and still pays a prostitute is the money which that woman used to get and gets in return of her “work” and activity, and not for her financial needs, which are great and several times more than a man’s personal needs, and such a sum is never the same as that money which a man presents to his wife for the attachment of love and affection. Man has always paid for the extensive material needs of woman in self-sacrifice. Also the best and the strongest incentive for work and activity is the peace and the welfare of his home life, that is, his wife and children.

A woman in polyandry has never been able to attract the protection, love, sincere attachment and devotion of man towards her. That is the reason why polyandry, like prostitution has always been an object of disgust for woman. And thus, polyandry has always been in harmony neither with the taste and requirements of man nor with the taste and requirements of woman.

The failure of sexual communism:

The cause of the failure of sexual communism is the same. Sexual communism, doing away with every personal attachment on either side so that neither has the woman any special interest in any particular man nor the man in any special woman was, as we mentioned before, proposed by Plato, only it was for the circle of the ruling class, that is, the king-philosophers or philosopher-kings, as Plato said. This behaviour was disapproved of not only by others, but Plato himself also deviated from his idea.

A century back Fredrick Engels, the second father of Communism, also proposed this idea and wrote in its defence, but the communist world did not approve of it. It is said that the Soviet Government, in view of many bitter experiences which followed from the enforcement of Engels’ communist family theory, passed laws for the benefit of the family in 1938, and monogamy was adopted as the officially approved communist form of matrimony.

Polygyny might be a mark of distinction for a man, but polyandry has never been, and could never be, a distinctive mark of respect for a woman. The cause of this difference is that man is in quest of the person of a woman, while the woman is in need of the heart and the love of a man and of his devotion. For a man, as long as he has the person of the woman under his control attaches no importance to the matter of whether the heart of woman is with him or not. This is the reason why, in polygyny, he attaches little importance to matters of the heart and the subtleties of delicate feelings. But for a woman the heart and love of a man is the real thing. If she is bereaved of that she loses all.

In other words, in the matter of marriage, two elements hold sway. One of them is material and the other spiritual. The material element of matrimony is its sexual aspects, which in youth are in a state of excitement, and are at their zenith, and which gradually subside and calm down. The spiritual aspect relates to those kind, tender, sincere sentiments which rule the couple, and which, incidentally increase with time. One of the differences between man and woman is that for a woman, unlike a man, the latter element is more important than the former. Marriage for a woman means the spiritual aspect, more, and for a man the material aspect, or, at least the material and the spiritual aspects of marriage are equal for him.

Besides this, as we said in a previous section and quoted from a European female psychologist as our witness, because woman is the nourisher of the child, both in her womb and at her breast, she has a very special mental attitude which makes her acutely in need of the kind sentiments of her husband as the father of her child. It is to this extent true that the measure of the love of the children very much depends upon the measure of love and attachment of the husband to the mother on the score of his being the father of her child, the factor which has brought the child into existence. This need of the woman can be satisfied only when she has one husband.

Therefore, to compare polyandry with polygyny, and to imagine that there is no difference between the two, and that the cause of polygyny being a custom in some parts of the world is that man was stronger, and to imagine that the cause of a woman not being able to keep polyandry as a mark of distinction for herself is her weakness and frailty, is all a glaring mistake.

Ms. Manuchihriyan in her book Criticism of the Constitution and Civil Law of Iran, writes on page 34: “In clause 1049, the Civil Law says: No one can marry the daughter of the brother or of the sister of his wife except with the permission of his wife…. In case the wife does permit it, her husband can marry the daughter of the brother or of the sister of his wife. Now let us imagine what the consequences would be if the wife did not allow it. Nothing! As they say ‘don’t worry, there is an alternative. The man will marry someone else’. Very well! But if we reverse the proposition. For example, we say that the wife cannot marry the son or the brother or the son of the sister of her husband (while she is married to him) except with the permission of her husband. On hearing these words, the blood boils in the veins and people cry out that such a suggestion would be against human principles, and moreover, that it is basically against the nature and the innate disposition of the woman. In reply, it should be said that this proposition is only against the principle of the slavery of woman. Just as property does not have more than one owner, or, if it has, after partition, its produce goes to one owner, the woman also, under the explicit and implicit laws of our land, is in the category of property and consequently she should not have more than one owner….”

On page 73 of her book she says:

“We can say that just as a man can have up to four wives, a woman, so as to become a human should possess similar and equal rights to those which the man has. The result of the logical major and minor premises would be very dreadful for man. Here it is that the blood rises in their veins, and with an excited face and flaming eyes they cry out, ‘how is it possible for a woman to have more than one husband?’ We would very coolly and calmly say in their reply, ‘how can a man have more than one wife?’

“We do not want here to incite to immorality, and also we do not think it proper to be petty and depreciate the piety and chastity of women, but we want to impress upon men that as regards women their ideas and beliefs are not based, as they imagine, upon a strong and unassailable foundation. Woman is one and man is one, each of them is equal. If this right to have up to four wives has been given to men because they are men, women also should have the same right. Even if they are not stronger than men in intellect, it should be acknowledged that in brightness of the spirit and in quality of the soul a woman is not inferior to man.”

As you have seen in the above quoted statements, no difference is taken into account between polygyny and polyandry except that, man is strong, he has established polygyny in his favour, while woman has had no independence to defend and safeguard polyandry for the only reason that she was a slave. In the above passage it is also stated that the establishment of polygyny and the banning of polyandry was due to the fact that man was the owner of woman and woman the slave. Because man was the owner of woman, he was in a position to keep several wives, that is, he could possess plenty of wealth. Woman was something owned, and an owned thing cannot have more than one owner. So she could not reap the benefit of having more than one husband.

Incidentally, contrary to the views of the lady writer, her own non-acceptance of polyandry is by itself evidence that man has not been looking at woman as her owner. The partnership or several persons in a property and all getting profit from that one property, is one of the laws in force in all human societies regarding property. If man looked on woman as his property, he would have allowed partnership in her, as he has allowed partnership in the ownership of property and the participation of its profits. Where in the world is there a system where property cannot have more than one owner, so that we can consider it the basis of the law of a singe husband.

They say: “As man is one and woman is one, it is necessary that they should have equal rights. Why should a man benefit from the rights of polygyny while woman cannot enjoy the right to polyandry?” I say that it is here that you are mistaken. You have imagined that polygyny is the part of the rights of man, and that polyandry is a part of the rights of woman while, as a matter of fact, polygyny is part of the rights of women, and polyandry is neither part of the rights of men nor part of the rights of women. It is against the interest and advantage of man as well as against the interest and advantage of woman. We shall hereafter prove that the law regarding polygyny in Islam was created with the object of reviving and vindicating the rights of women. If the intention were to put man in a favorable position, Islam would have done the same as the western world has done. To man it would have given the right to use and enjoy other women along with the first one, but would not have accepted any commitment or undertaking from the man as regards the interests of the woman and the children as his legal wife and his legal children.

Polyandry was not in the interests of woman, and so it cannot be said that one of her rights has been forfeited.

They say they want to impress upon men that their (men’s) ideas regarding woman are not “based upon secure and unassailable foundation, men mistakably imagine.” Accidentally, it was just what we want. We shall explain the basis of the Islamic view- point regarding polygyny. We earnestly implore this writer and every reasonable person to examine and consider whether the Islamic view rests upon a firm and unassailable footing or not. I declare on my word of honour that if anyone can point to a loophole in the foundation of the Islamic view in the problem under discussion, I shall discard everything I have said concerning the rights of women.