LOVE AND RELIGION - REASONS GIVEN FOR POLYGAMY

 

LOVE AND RELIGION - REASONS GIVEN FOR POLYGAMY  

Article 6 based on the data published by BMMA in ‘Breaking the Silence’ https://notionpress.com/in/read/breaking-the-silence-1410178808-1410178808 

A quick look at the percentages show that 6% of wives unaware of the remarriage reflects lack of transparency and possible emotional or physical separation even before the second marriage occurred.

31% said they loved someone else. Which confirms our earlier analysis that the first marriage was not based on love but may be force of the parents and their decision. We also saw earlier that 26% married within the first 3 years of marriage indicating that the moment opportunity came he remarried the person whom he loved in the first place. And they also tell this to their first wife. One can imagine as a woman being told by the husband that he does not love her.

The second highest reason was the religious sanction at 30%. Whether the marriage happened within the first or the tenth year of marriage, religion becomes the foremost important reason after love for the second marriage to happen. Religious justification is given to both the wives.

The third highest reason but way down to 17% is not even a reason. The first wife has no idea why he remarried. No reasons given. Just the news that he has remarried. She keeps wondering what could it be. This reflects secrecy, lack of communication and total disregard for the first wife’s emotions. The rest of the life is spent in just ruminating what could be the reason.

At 15% there is a reverse that he does not love her. He may not be in love with someone else but he does not love her. So the second marriage could happen because of reasons other than love. These form 15% of the responses including all those reasons which we keep hearing but they are not on the top of the list of reasons. That wife could not conceive, that he wanted financial benefits out of second marriage, that he wanted a son, that wife was unwell. But the top of the heap is love and religion.

The data highlights emotional, religious, and patriarchal justifications behind men’s re-marriages. Many husbands rationalized their actions through religious or social norms, often side-lining emotional accountability.

Some years back triple divorce played an important role in helping men to assert their authority in a marriage. He held the power to unilaterally terminate the marriage in 3 seconds flat. It was tool for manipulation, control and to keep women under his control for fear of being divorced. Threat of instant divorce kept women under his authority and he could make her do whatever he wanted. With triple divorce made illegal, polygamy now plays that role. Husband asserts his power through the threat of remarriage. It becomes a way to discipline or threaten the first wife. Lack of legislation in this area also encourages the men. If he remarries, he is not doing anything illegal or unIslamic.

Let us now see what husbands tell the second wife about his reasons for marrying her. Love and then religion crop up again at 43% and 40%

The dominant reasons given to the second wife were:

“He loved her” (43%), suggesting that emotional or romantic justification was the most common explanation. “Religion allows four wives” (39.7%), again showing that religious sanction is used as a legitimizing tool for remarriage. Together, these two reasons alone account for over 80% of responses.

12–15% of men justified remarriage by discrediting the first wife by saying that he did not love her (14.8%), that she is ill-mannered (11.5%), that she could not conceive (12.9%) or that she could not bear sons (4.2%). These collectively reflect patriarchal blame-shifting, where the first wife is portrayed as the cause. The data also reflects gendered power imbalance — men control the narrative, often invoking love, religion, or the first wife’s faults to rationalize remarriage.

12.8% of second wives reported that the man lied about being divorced, and 17.3% of first wives said they did not know the reason at all, showing dishonesty and manipulation in both relationships.

Arranged marriages by parents were mentioned by 13.8% of first wives and 19.7% of second wives, implying that family involvement sustains and normalizes polygamous practices.

Work-related reasons (“staying far away for work”) appeared more often among second wives (12.6%) than first (8%), perhaps used as a socially acceptable excuse for taking another wife.

Husbands tailor their justifications depending on the audience. To the first wife: reasons that distance or dismiss her — emotional detachment, religion, or her inadequacy. To the second wife: reasons that attract or reassure her — love, religion, or sympathy toward the husband’s situation. The data exposes a dual communication strategy rooted in patriarchal privilege, where men control both narratives to maintain power and legitimacy. The consistent invocation of religion and reproduction reveals how social and cultural norms are instrumentalized to rationalize polygamy. Emotional manipulation (love), moral justification (religion), and social conditioning (infertility, arranged setups) together form the triad of rationalizations used by men to remarry.