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| Southeast Asia |
| Indonesian women lobby for polygamy ban |
| 2008-04-23 |
| A coalition of Indonesian women's groups is calling on the government to change the nation's marriage laws and abolish polygamy. Under Indonesia's marital laws, a Muslim man can have more than one wife if permission is granted by a local court and the wife gives her consent. The religious adviser for the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, Imam Amin Hady, believes the marriage laws which permit polygamy cannot be abolished as they form part of the Koran. But he has told Radio Australia's Connect Asia program that Indonesia's religious affairs and justice departments work together to ensure people do not abuse their polygamy rights. "The scholars in Islam say, the general ruling is that man can only marry then one woman," he said. "There is an exception where a man can marry more than one woman, with certain conditions, one, two, three, four, and this ruling can be very strict." Permission for having more than one wife is only granted if the man's first wife cannot fulfil her obligations, is disabled, ill, or cannot have children. But Indonesia's Rahima Centre for Education and Information on Women's Rights says many men are providing false information in order to gain permission. Herb Feith Research professor from Monash University, Dr Greg Barton, says it is understandable women are concerned some men in Indonesia are abusing their right to have a second wife. "I think most people who look at these things would say it's scarcely ever a good thing, it's generally a bad thing and it's best if it's discouraged," he said. "The question of policy comes back to how best you change practices, so certainly revising laws has got to be part of it, but you've got to change attitudes." Civil servants in Indonesia are not allowed to practice polygamy and when the Indonesian Government in 2006 proposed to extend this restriction to all public servants, it lead to protests among the country's Muslim parties. Women's groups say they will continue to lobby the Government to change its marriage laws, but acknowledge it will take some time before anything is done, as it is not a priority for legislators. |
| Posted by:ryuge |
| #3 Traditional polygamy also had a very determined economic reason. If men couldn't have more than one wife, then "excess" women would be left to starve, abandoned by their own families. So in that circumstance, polygamy was a humanitarian gesture. However, even then, it was not for everybody. For a man to have more than one wife, there was a strict requirement that they be treated exactly equally, down to the button. This meant that only prosperous men could be polygamists. It was never meant for the poor, or even the middle class. Mormon polygamy, being more recent, has a lot more clarity in its rationales. Women outnumbered men in the early days of their religion by a large degree. They were in a very barren, desolate place where everybody had to have everything rationed. A woman alone would have been a goner. This left only two options. Either extra women would become servants, essentially slaves, to the household of a family. At the time of the US Civil War this was not thought of highly, for some reason. The other possibility was polygamy. The problem with polygamy was that while it was usually a temporary measure, there was no protocol to abolish it, or severely limit it except in times of crisis or deprivation. Importantly, the other form of polygamy was only for leaders, such as Brigham Young or some powerful Muslim Emir. These were political marriages. They weren't for economic reasons as much as to forge agreements and keep the peace. The flip side of this polygamy was for leaders to swap sons, vaguely like hostages, to seal some bargain. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2008-04-23 10:37 |
| #2 On simple economics alone they could put forth the argument and make a valid case............. |
| Posted by: anonymous2u 2008-04-23 09:52 |
| #1 Re: this matter and the polygamist Mormon sects The Mormons who practice polygamy use the polygamous Old Testament patriarchs as their example, and the Muslims kept a cultural norm from before the time of Muhammad. If you take a look at these patriarchs' lives, as recorded in the Bible, every time the Bible tells about the home life of a polygamous family, there's bitterness and jealousy and a lot of pain. |
| Posted by: mom 2008-04-23 09:50 |