Why is a man allowed to have more than one wife in Islam?

The Qur'an is the only religious book, on the face of this earth, that contains the
phrase 'marry only one'. There is no other religious book that instructs men to
have only one wife. In none of the other religious scriptures, whether it be the
Vedas, the Ramayan, the Mahabharat, the Geeta, the Talmud or the Bible does
one find a restriction on the number of wives. According to these scriptures one
can marry as many as one wishes. It was only later, that the Hindu priests and
the Christian Church restricted the number of wives to one.
Many Hindu religious personalities, according to their scriptures, had multiple
wives. King Dashrat, the father of Rama, had more than one wife. Krishna had
several wives. In earlier times, Christian men were permitted as many wives as they wished, since the Bible puts no restriction on the number of wives. It was only a few centuries ago that the Church restricted the number of wives to one.

Many people are under the misconception that it is compulsory for a Muslim man to have more than one wife. It is not compulsory, it is optional.

Let us now analyse why Islam allows a man to have more than one wife. By nature males and females are born in approximately the same ratio. A
female child has more immunity than a male child. A female child can fight the
germs and diseases better than the male child. For this reason, during the
pediatric age itself there are more deaths among males as compared to the
females. During wars, there are more men killed as compared to women. More men die due to accidents and diseases than women. The average life span of females is more than that of males, and at any given time one finds more widows in the world than widowers.

India is one of the few countries, along with the other neighbouring countries, in
which the female population is less than the male population. The reason lies in
the high rate of female infanticide in India, and the fact that more than one
million female foetuses are aborted every year in this country, after they are
identified as females. If this evil practice is stopped, then India too will have
more females as compared to males.

In the USA, women outnumber men by 7.8 million. New York alone has one
million more females as compared to the number of males, and of the male
population of New York one-third are gays i.e sodomites. The U.S.A as a whole
has more than twenty-five million gays. This means that these people do not
wish to marry women. Great Britain has four million more females as compared
to males. Germany has five million more females as compared to males. Russia
has nine million more females than males. God alone knows how many million
more females there are in the whole world as compared to males.

Even if every man got married to one woman, there would still be more than
thirty million females in U.S.A who would not be able to get husbands
(considering that America has twenty five million gays). There would be more
than four million females in Great Britain, 5 million females in Germany and nine
million females in Russia alone who would not be able to find a husband.
Suppose my sister happens to be one of the unmarried women living in USA, or
suppose your sister happens to be one of the unmarried women in USA. The
only two options remaining for her are that she either marries a man who
already has a wife or becomes 'public property'. There is no other option. All
those who are modest will opt for the first. Most women would nto like to share their husband with other women. But in Islam when the situation deems it really neccessary Muslim women in due faith could bear a small personal loss to prevent a greater loss of letting other Muslim sisters becoming 'public properties'.

In Western society, it is common for a man to have mistresses and/or multiple
extra-marital affairs, in which case, the woman leads a disgraceful, unprotected
life. The same society, however, cannot accept a man having more than one
wife, in which women retain their honourable, dignified position in society and
lead a protected life.

Thus the only two options before a woman who cannot find a husband is to
marry a married man or to become 'public property'. Islam prefers giving
women the honourable position by permitting the first option and disallowing the
second. There are several other reasons, why Islam has permitted limited polygyny, but it is mainly to protect the modesty of women.

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