{"id":920,"date":"2010-11-07T21:12:33","date_gmt":"2010-11-07T17:12:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=920"},"modified":"2010-11-18T11:07:50","modified_gmt":"2010-11-18T07:07:50","slug":"saudi-arabia-the-cover-up-of-polygamy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/middle-east-society\/religion-in-the-middle-east\/saudi-arabia-the-cover-up-of-polygamy\/","title":{"rendered":"Saudi Arabia and The Cover Up of Polygamy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I have noticed that in Saudi Arabia and even other places around the world where Islamic polygamy has been practiced it is usually tightly held if not outrightly concealed.\u00a0 Polygamy continues to be practiced in Saudi Arabia.\u00a0 I wish I knew the statistics of how many wives in Saudi where the man has chosen polygamy are all Saudi wives or whether there is a Saudi wife and wives of other nationalities.\u00a0 Many of the families which I know where polygamy is practiced seem to have two wives where one wife is Saudi and the other wife is a foreigner.\u00a0 There does not seem to be a pattern on which wife (Saudi or foreign) was the first.\u00a0 However, in all cases of which I am personally aware, not a one of the wives are happy that their husband chose to exercise his entitlement of polygamy.<\/p>\n

Polygamy is complex in so many aspects.\u00a0 In most cases in Saudi Arabia it is practiced where the man has two separate families.\u00a0 In some cases the children of the wives may know one another and mix.\u00a0 There are other cases where the children have nothing to do with one another and are close and loyal to their mother whom they believe has been cheated and short-changed.<\/p>\n

The wives typically have their separate lives and do not want to mix.\u00a0 If there is a special occasion such as a birth, wedding, funeral or Eid celebrations, they may both be present.\u00a0 Because of the occasion which will generally have many other women present, the wives will be polite to one another.\u00a0 Yet they are probably quivering inside with multiple emotions for having to face the other woman with whom their husband also has a home, children and ongoing intimacy.<\/p>\n

Many foreign wives choose to conceal that they are living in polygamy whether the polygamy occurred with or without their knowledge or consent.\u00a0 Western women in particular have an ostrich coping mechanism choosing to bury their head in the sand rather than publicly face or acknowledge that they are not the only wife.\u00a0 In their Western eyes, what the husband has done, by executing his entitlement to polygamy, is wrong.\u00a0 The family members and friends of the man will not speak out about the man\u2019s actions and choices adding their collusion and enablement into the mix.\u00a0 In many cases, the wives may be the last to know that their Saudi husband chose to practice polygamy.<\/p>\n

Does a Saudi man choose polygamy because he may be torn between two worlds?\u00a0 The man is typically raised in a conservative environment and culture yet he experiences some of the Western freedoms either from his work or circle of friends in Saudi Arabia or he has either lived or traveled outside of Saudi Arabia.\u00a0 Or the man may have been influenced by what he has seen or read in the media about the West and found himself yearning for something different?\u00a0 The Saudi man will truly have two very different lifestyles and ways of life when he has both a traditional Saudi wife and a foreign (Western) wife.\u00a0 Even when a man chooses to marry a woman from another Arab country or any country, he will still have two very different lives and lifestyles.\u00a0 No two women are the same and that applies to Saudi women too.\u00a0 So why does today\u2019s Saudi man wish to have more than one wife?\u00a0 Let\u2019s face it, many of today\u2019s Saudi men who have chosen polygamy are not doing so based on the requirements of how polygamy is encouraged and endorsed in the Holy Quran.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AMERICAN BEDU: There does not seem to be a pattern on which wife (Saudi or foreign) was the first. However, in all cases I am aware of, not one wife is happy that their husband chose to exercise the right of polygamy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":921,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,73],"tags":[91,116,18275],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}