All mandates of the religion of Islam are
from God, the Wise, and thus one deduces that
all things which are permitted are due to the
fact that their benefit to the self and society
outweighs their harms. When one analyzes the
reasons and results of the allowance of
polygamy, it will be found that indeed the
rulings of the religion of Islam are truly those
which suit all times and places, as their source
is God Almighty, the Wise and the
Knowledgeable.
As the Quran indicates (4:3), the issue of
polygamy in Islam is understood in the light of
community obligations towards orphans and
widows. Islam, as a universal religion that is
suitable for all times and places, can not ignore
these compelling obligations.
Islamic polygamy addresses the social
problems of prostitution and extramarital
affairs common in the West. Instead of
cheating - infidelity is one of the top reasons
for divorce in the West - Islam allows a man to
marry more than one wife, with full
recognition of the rights of all of them. The
basic principle in Islam is that men are held
responsible for their behavior towards women
just as women are responsible for their
behavior towards men.
The number of women in the world
exceeds that of men. The surplus is a result of
men dying in wars, violent crimes, and women
outliving men. The upsurge in
homosexuality further increases the problem.
Bertrand Russell wrote, “And in all countries
where there is an excess of women, it is an
obvious injustice that those women who, by
arithmetical necessity, must remain unmarried
should be wholly debarred from sexual
experience." Polygamy, then, is the only
responsible solution for this predicament.
Country [3] Male
Population
Female
Population
Russia 46.1% 53.9%
UK 48.6% 51.5%
USA 48.8% 51.2%
Brazil 49.7% 50.27%

To be continued insha Allah.

Let us take the US as an example. Why are
extramarital affairs so widespread? “What
makes this state of affairs possible, of course, is
a supply of willing women. Most are single,
both because of the growing numbers of
unmarried women (there are 34 million in the
United States today) and because single women
generally have more free time and energy than
do their married counterparts. Consider these
statistics: One out of every five women today
has no potential mate because there are simply
not enough single men to go around. A 25-
year-old single woman faces a serious
undersupply of available men to start with, and
the situation gets worse the older a woman
gets. Divorced men are much more likely than
divorced women to remarry (and they tend to
marry younger women), so that there are more
than twice as many single women as there are
single men in their 40s. Indeed, a woman who
divorces at 35 today is likely to remain single
for the rest of her life. Caught in a
demographic bind while seeking greater
autonomy, more and more single women are
opting for involvement with married men.
In addition, surplus of women who are not
financially maintained by a husband is a cause
of increased prostitution in the society. For
example, Germany has 0.96 males/females.
Under Germany’s welfare reforms, any woman
under 55 who has been out of work for more
than a year can be forced to take an available
job – including being a prostitute in the sex
industry – or lose her unemployment benefit!
A 1994 study found that 16% of 18-59 year
old men in a US survey group had paid for sex
(Gagnon, Laumann, and Kolata 1994).
Furthermore, the problem of the
unbalanced sex ratios can worsen during times
of war. The WWII war-bride phenomenon is a
case in point. After WWII there were 7,300,000
more women than men in Germany alone (3.3
million of them were widows). There were 100
men aged 20 to 30 for every 167 women in that
age group. Many of these women needed a
man not only as a companion but also as a
provider for the household in a time of
unprecedented misery and hardship. The
soldiers in the victorious Allied Armies
exploited these women’s vulnerability. Many
young girls and widows had liaisons with
members of the occupying forces. Many
American and British soldiers paid for their
pleasures in cigarettes, chocolate, and bread.
Polygamy is an alternative to divorce in
case of some marital problems. Instead of
divorcing a sick or infertile wife, Islam permits
a man to marry another woman while taking
care of the first if she chooses to stay with him.
The teachings of Islam, including polygamy,
conform to human nature. Men and women
differ in their desire for sexual variety. These
differences are universal. According to
evolutionary scientists men are “hard-wired” to
spread their seed. Men everywhere - whether
single or married - want more sexual partners
than women do. The Islamic solution provides
the only responsible alternative to the naturally
ingrained desire in men.
There is a universal biological constraint in
male and female reproduction. A woman’s
reproductive capacity declines after her 20s and
ends with menopause, but even a man in his
70s retains the ability to father children. [8]
Polygamy is a solution for a man who desires
more children, especially in traditional,
agrarian societies. This may seem irrelevant in
the Western context where childbearing is
increasingly becoming independent of
marriage. Polygamy is also an alternative for a
man who desires to satisfy his natural sexual
relations within the bounds of marriage, but
whose wife may be averse to them due to age
or sickness. Moreover, Islam prohibits sexual
relations during a woman’s monthly cycles.
Therefore, the prolonged menstrual period of
the woman which prevents the husband from
having sex with her, or a man whose sexual
urge is not satisfied by one wife, may marry
another. Islam permits such men to realize
their desire within a legal framework, making
them responsible for their sexuality, so he does
not have to resort to cohabitation or
prostitution.
Institutional polygamy controls the spread
of sexually transmitted diseases like Herpes and
AIDS. Such venereal diseases spread in
promiscuous societies where extra-marital
affairs and prostitution are widespread. This
may be due to a husband’s bringing back the
diseases he is infected with in an extramarital
affair when he returns back to his
‘monogamous’ relationship with his wife.
One can clearly see that there are many
benefits which result from the allowance of
polygamy. Many societal ills are left untreated,
if not created or worsened, due to modern
restrictions placed on polygamy. One should
not always regard their culture and time the
most superior in history, but rather they should
analyze customs, traditions and beliefs based
on solid and tangible facts. When people do so,
keeping an open mind and heart, they will
draw nearer and nearer to the truth until it
becomes clear as the light of day.