Britain Sees Rise In Polygamy Among Young Muslims

The Australian (carrying a story from The Times) today reports that Britain is experiencing an unexpected rise in polygamy among young Muslims.  Even though polygamy is illegal in Britain, it is permitted under Shariah law and accepted in many Muslim communities.  Britain's Islamic Shariah Council says that for the first time, polygamy is among the top ten reasons that wives seek divorces. In 2010, 43 out of 700 divorce applications cited polygamy as the reason. Men take second-- or even third and fourth-- wives in three kinds of situations: (1) young men who wish to practice a more conservative form of Islam; (2) the most common situation-- failed marriages where the wife does not want a divorce and the father wants to continue seeing and supporting the children; and (3) the rarer situation in which a man's parents remain in their home country and he marries a woman there who is essentially the caregiver for his parents.