Despite evidence that polygamy is marginal, declining, and not specific to a religious group, it has been weaponised against Muslims to fuel Islamophobia, even as the Quran, the primary source of Islamic law, backs monogamy as the preferred model of marriage, underlining how polygamy can never be fair and just
Polygamy is rare globally and banned across much of the world. A 2020 Pew Research Center analysis confirmed this. It found that only about 2% of the world’s population lived in polygamous households. The share was under 0.5% in the vast majority of countries. West and Central African countries such as Burkina Faso (36%), Mali (34%), and Nigeria (28%), where polygamy is legal to some extent, had the highest percentage of such households.
The practice was widespread in parts of Africa among followers of folk religions. In Burkina Faso, 45% of such people lived in polygamous households. Christians (21%) in Chad were more likely than Muslims (10%) to be polygamous. In Gambia, Niger, Mali, Chad, and Burkina Faso, at least one in 10 in every religious group measured lived in households that included husbands with more than one spouse.
In the United States (US), a Gallup poll in 2020 found that one in five (20%) adults believed that polygamy is morally acceptable, up from 7% since the question was first asked in 2003. It was higher than in those who saw polygamy as morally acceptable in Muslim-majority countries, Albania (10%), Bosnia-Herzegovina (4%), Kazakhstan, Turkey (13%), Tajikistan (12%), Azerbaijan (4%), and Guinea-Bissau (19%).
Liberals were much more likely than conservatives to see polygamy as morally acceptable (34% versus 9%) in the US, which criminalized spouse-like relationships with more than one person under the same roof in 1882. There are few and far between prosecutions in the US for living with multiple romantic partners. The western American state of Utah reduced the penalties for adults living voluntarily in polygamous relationships, making the practice an infraction, a low-level offense not punishable with jail time, in 2020.
The percentage of people calling polygamy morally acceptable in the US moved into double digits in 2011. It reached 16% in 2015 and 20% in 2020. The percentage of young people who found polygamy morally acceptable rose from 9% to 34%. The increased acceptability of the practice was believed to be part of a general trend of increased liberalism on moral issues.
Gallup senior scientist Frank Newport also attributed more frequent portrayals of polygamous households in the mass media among the possible reasons for it. He wrote that shows like My Five Wives and Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness may have had the impact of legitimizing polygamy by making it appear to be a more routine and less deviant family arrangement.
Polygamy and Islamophobia
Pew Research Center found fewer than 1% of men lived with more than one spouse in Muslim-majority Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran, and Egypt, which account for about 30.5% of the global Muslim population. The percentage was less than 0.5% in Malaysia and Indonesia, home to 15% of the world’s Muslims.
In India, the 2019-20 National Family Health Survey (NFHS) data showed polygamy was most prevalent among Christians (2.1%), followed by Muslims (1.9%) and Hindus (1.3%). The practice was more common among Hindus in four Indian states—Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Tamil Nadu.
International Institute of Population Studies (Mumbai) analysed NFHS data from 2005-06, 2015-16, and 2019-20 and found polygamy was higher among poor, uneducated, rural, and older people. The analysis indicated socioeconomic factors played a role. The polygynous marriages overall decreased from 1.9% in 2005-06 to 1. 4% in 2019-20.
Despite evidence that polygamy is marginal, declining, and not specific to a religious group, it has been weaponised against Muslims and to fuel Islamophobia. Polygamy is wrongly portrayed as a widespread practice among Muslims to buttress anti-Muslim tropes related to women, amplify demographic conspiracy theories, and unfounded threats to non-Muslim populations. Right-wing politicians and media deploy them to stoke fear and prejudice against Muslim minorities. The myth that Islam encourages polygamy is partly to blame for this.
Does Islam Really Encourage Polygamy?
The Quran, the primary source of Islamic law, in reality backs monogamy as the preferred model of marriage. It did not give men the blanket right to have more than one wife. The relevant verse (Al-Nisa, 4:3) was revealed in the limited context of the Battle of Uhud, when the nascent Muslim community in Medina lost a significant number of men, leaving women and children unsupported.
‘If you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly with the [post-Uhud] orphans, marry [widowed] women of your choice, two or three, or four; but if you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly [with them], then only [marry] one,’ says the verse. A subsequent verse in the same chapter (Al-Nisa’, 4:129) emphasizes: ‘You are never able to be fair and just between women even if that were your ardent desire.’
The Quran did not sanction the pre-Islamic practice of unlimited polygyny. It restricted the number to four in the limited context of war widows and orphans, and as a responsibility and not as a right. It was a major reform at that time, as the Quran restricted the existing practice of men marrying as many women as they wanted. The Quran stressed the need for just conduct and equal treatment while also recognising the difficulty in doing so. In fact, verse 4:129 advocates monogamy as the ideal state of marriage.
The justification for polygamy from Sunna, or the Prophet Muhammad’s way of life, is out of context. The Prophet mostly lived a monogamous life when power and authority were largely determined by the size of one’s harem in seventh-century Arabia. He was 25 when he married Khadija. The union lasted for over 25 years. Khadijah remained the Prophet’s only wife until her death, when polygamy was the norm.
The Prophet spent the prime years of his life in the companionship of a single wife and never thought of remarrying. He remarried when Khadijah died after a well-wisher suggested to him to marry again for someone to look after his daughters, as he was busy with preaching. The Prophet married more women for the sole reason of taking care of war widows when it became a major issue facing the small state of Medina, which he founded.
The Prophet took the lead in responding to a peculiar situation when men were allowed to marry the mothers of orphans if their relatives and guardians thought that they would not be able to take care of them. He married to honour women held as captives in military campaigns and to lead by example in liberating enslaved people. The Prophet married for political reasons to forge links within and beyond his community. The prophets Abraham, Jacob, Moses, and Hosea, before him, had multiple wives. What was unusual for his time was his 25-year monogamy, which was almost unheard of.
