The Broken Woman

[Muhammad Abdullah]

don't start a war akhee

[Muhammad Abdullah]

the modernists will be exposed LoL

[modest_muslima]

I think a lot of brothers have trouble treating the first wife correctly, let alone taking a second. Brothers never worry about falling into sin with the first, why should they care about the second, third or fourth?!

Why should they care when centrelink will pay for their second, third and fourth wives?

[Muhammad Abdullah]

I am not talking about buying her things. He is only has to feed her, dress her, and put a roof over her head. I am talking about teaching her, being kind to her, protecting her. Not everyone gets centrelink to pay for things, they get the 2nd wife too LoL

[lailahaillallah]

lol lailahaillallah, with all og your comments, i wonder how many wives do you have or thinking about having

PS: it's a not a question but it's an idea that crossed my head and i wanted to say it loudly.

i dont have a wife and i really dont have plans on taking more than one, at this stage. i wasnt always muslim akhi so as a non-muslim i did the whole "gf" thing. i'm well aware how much of a headache 1 partner can be, let alone more than 1. (and before any of the sisters say anything, i'm sure all my ex-gfs were well aware how much of a headache I could be.) however, i'm heartly sick of hearing so many people bad mouth any man who considers taking more than 1 wife as though he's some inconsiderate fool, when if he follows the quran and sunnah properly he's doing absolutely nothing wrong and indeed, a very commendable act.

if muslim women are allowed feminism within the bounds of shariah, i.e to fight for the rights islam gives women and demand them and the respect they afford, then by allah!!: what is wrong with men expecting to be able to practice the rights that allah swt has given us with a bit of respect?? i dont think thats too much to ask ukhti, i'll be the first to champion women's rights within the bounds of shariah, all i expect is a bit of respect in return. i may or may not choose to take a second wife, but who the hell is any muslim to make me out like i'm the dajjal or something if i decide to take a second wife. furthermore, the only people who might know the intentions of the man are allah swt, the husband, and the wives in the relationship, and beyond that.. its no ones business. insha'allah any man who enters into a polygamous relationship would have good intentions and strive to treat his wives justly, but in the end, if he does or if he does not... its between him, his wives and allah swt. the bottom line is, polygamy is a righteous act and if practiced properly has the potential to have more benefit to more people than monogamy.

Why should they care when centrelink will pay for their second, third and fourth wives?

lol do you really think the dole is going to cover what a husband has to pay on food, clothing and shelter for each wife? remember the obligation to spend equally between them and that shelter isnt really just rent/house payment.. its every bill associated with running a household, or even 2!

even if the wife does get the dole, it is the husbands duty islamically to provide from his means for her. any man who knows islam and was intending on practicing polygamy with good intentions and by the quran and the sunnah would know this.

its highly likely, although dont quote me on this, that if he had enough money to provide for two women then his wife under civil law (i.e australian law) wouldnt be allowed to get the dole because of his salary. in which case he'd be islamically bound to provide for both fully and even if the wives were eligible to recieve centrelink.

if he was fulfilling his obligations to feed, house and clothe them.. then what is he doing wrong? if theyr'e getting centrelink ontop of that they should be thankful and its their own money and has NOTHING to do with him. please dont act like it does.

any man who practices polygamy and relies on the centrelink benefits his wives recieve to pay for their food/clothes/shelter etc is not fulfilling his islamic obligations and therefore shouldnt be practicing polygamy. its as simple as that.

allahu alam

[modest_muslima]

if he was fulfilling his obligations to feed, house and clothe them.. then what is he doing wrong? if theyr'e getting centrelink ontop of that they should be thankful and its their own money and has NOTHING to do with him. please dont act like it does.

any man who practices polygamy and relies on the centrelink benefits his wives recieve to pay for their food/clothes/shelter etc is not fulfilling his islamic obligations and therefore shouldnt be practicing polygamy. its as simple as that.

Polygamy in this country is illegal so a second wife would live in 'hiding' and she could claim single parent pension/dole, family allowance, rent assistance (maybe i'm missing a payment somewhere??) The husband's income wouldn't even come into it.
SO there's the good news! You can all afford a second wife! Don't worry about looking after her emotional needs

[AmeenahY]

Assalamu alaikum,

I am really late coming in to this thread, but I just wanted to say that I think lailahaillallah you are missing the point of the article.

Personally, I have had many discussions with my husband asking him (imploring him!!) to marry another wife, but his reply has been, "No, but thanks anyway". So, by no means am I against him taking another wife.

However, if he came home one day out of the blue with another woman in tow and said, "Here's my new wife" I would be furious, quite frankly. That is because part of treating a wife with kindness and justice is to at least give her some advance warning of something which is going to have a huge impact on her life.

And of course it will have a huge impact. Suddenly her husband will be there only half the time and there will no doubt be many, many impacts on her day to day living.

So why focus on the fact that the woman is complaining about her husband taking another wife, when the point is intended to make men realise there is a way of going about doing this with kindness and justice - surely requirements when it comes to the treatment of a wife.

I think there is this assumption that women should just become emotionless when it comes to accepting this situation. If a husband wants their wives to give emotionally to them, then they have to understand the fragility of what they have been given by their wife and not trample on the very thing they cherish their wife for.

Wa alaikum salam,
Rachel

[UmmAhmad]

Assalam alaikum,

One thing I thought about after reading this article was she threw herself out of the window and is now paralysed from neck down. Well she was unhappy at first about the second wife, look at the situation now. She is dependent on the second wife or her family for her care and if he does stay married to her, she can not fulfill her wifely duties and has to live with the knowledge that his second wife is fulfilling ALL his needs, and not just every second day if she hadn't done this action.

So which situation would be worse, the one she is in now? or having another woman share her husband?

Fiamanallah, roslyn

[umm_mohammed]

Assalamu alaikum

Knowing how some women are, I think she did that to herself to make her husband feel guilty. I seriously don't like how some women act, spiteful, vindictive. Women! Alhamdulillah it's at times like these that I'm glad that I'm not a man lol

[amatul_rahmaan]

I am not talking about buying her things. He is only has to feed her, dress her, and put a roof over her head.

although this is true but i didn't like the way it was said using the words 'he only have to'

[amatul_rahmaan]

i dont have a wife and i really dont have plans on taking more than one, at this stage. i wasnt always muslim akhi so as a non-muslim i did the whole "gf" thing. i'm well aware how much of a headache 1 partner can be, let alone more than 1. (and before any of the sisters say anything, i'm sure all my ex-gfs were well aware how much of a headache I could be.) however, i'm heartly sick of hearing so many people bad mouth any man who considers taking more than 1 wife as though he's some inconsiderate fool, when if he follows the quran and sunnah properly he's doing absolutely nothing wrong and indeed, a very commendable act.

if muslim women are allowed feminism within the bounds of shariah, i.e to fight for the rights islam gives women and demand them and the respect they afford, then by allah!!: what is wrong with men expecting to be able to practice the rights that allah swt has given us with a bit of respect?? i dont think thats too much to ask akhi, i'll be the first to champion women's rights within the bounds of shariah, all i expect is a bit of respect in return. i may or may not choose to take a second wife, but who the hell is any muslim to make me out like i'm the dajjal or something if i decide to take a second wife. furthermore, the only people who might know the intentions of the man are allah swt, the husband, and the wives in the relationship, and beyond that.. its no ones business. insha'allah any man who enters into a polygamous relationship would have good intentions and strive to treat his wives justly, but in the end, if he does or if he does not... its between him, his wives and allah swt. the bottom line is, polygamy is a righteous act and if practiced properly has the potential to have more benefit to more people than monogamy.

yea i can see from your tone that you are really tired from this topic and the way people act on it but what you said is fair enough and i agree with it.

hmmm, now should i have a second thought about pretending to be a brother since poeple started calling me brother again??
nah, i still don't feel like it

[lailahaillallah]

Polygamy in this country is illegal so a second wife would live in 'hiding' and she could claim single parent pension/dole, family allowance, rent assistance (maybe i'm missing a payment somewhere??) The husband's income wouldn't even come into it.
SO there's the good news! You can all afford a second wife! Don't worry about looking after her emotional needs

what do the laws of this country have to do with polygamy? australian civil law is totally irrelevent because they do not prevent you from taking a second wife within islam. who says she has to live in hiding?!? its actually haram for the community to not know a couple are married which is the purpose of the walima. i.e to spread the word of the marriage. the government might not know about the 2nd wife, but its really not that big an issue.

ummm you are missing something.. and not a payment. you're missing logic. her centrelink money is.. umm.. what is it... HER MONEY!! NOT his! he is STILL islamically obligated to pay for her needs from HIS MONEY! so his salary does come into it and if he wasnt fulfilling his obligations to totally provide for her needs, then he'd be commiting a great sin and she could divorce him. so if he's fulfilling his obligation to her then she's gonna have all this extra money of her own and she should thank allah swt for the blessing.

as for her emotional needs, a man is quite capable of providing for the emotional needs of two women, eg. the prophet did and half the salaf did. if you disagree and say the "modern man" cannot then i've already advised you how to guarantee your husband doesnt take a second wife.

allahu alam

[lailahaillallah]

However, if he came home one day out of the blue with another woman in tow and said, "Here's my new wife" I would be furious, quite frankly. That is because part of treating a wife with kindness and justice is to at least give her some advance warning of something which is going to have a huge impact on her life.

you obviously missed me when i said:

i agree with you that its not very considerate for a man to just come home with a 2nd wife one day....

and you obviously missed the article when it said rubbish like:

When her husband turns away from her by marrying again, the lofty cloud of dignity that had always sailed high in her sky dissipates and she is left with two choices:

To ask for her freedom and insist upon it,

Or rip her own dignity to shreds, gather up the pieces, and tread hard upon her injuries.

and:

“My husband came to me accompanied by a woman and announced to me that she was his wife.”

“I could not bear it. I ran to the window and hurled myself three stories to the ground.”

Those moments when a husband declares that he has married another woman, they are the most difficult moments in the first wife’s life.

if she was so against polygamy that she'd jump out of a 3 story window i really dont think she'd react well to him talking about it or be willing to talk constructively about it or from an islamic point of view. suicide isnt very islamic. so i'm not suprised he just came home and announced the second wife. she really sounded like the kind of woman who was capable of having a rational conversation, and she did seem like someone who thought very well of polygamy in general and her husband in general. (please note heavs sarcasm) i say this considering she, or at least the author this article, is claiming her husband inflicted upon her:

"..... pain that cannot be described."

that its a:

".......searing flame that does not subside."

furthermore she claims her husband:

"...turns away from her by marrying again"

because of him:

the lofty cloud of dignity that had always sailed high in her sky dissipates

the article calls polygamy one of the:

"...arrows of misfortune"

and that the first wife is:

"...cut by the blade of seperation"

and he did all this to her by practicing the sunnah of the prophet? masha'allah.*sarcasm*... you cant blame every ludicrous comment in this article on him not informing her before hand that he was gonna take a second wife.

astaghfirallah.. how have they suddenly become "seperated"(i take it thats what "blade of seperation" means) because he has a second wife? if they were seperated he'd have divorced her or abandoned her. which he clearly didnt do by informing her of his 2nd wife and introducing them instead of becoming the a marital clark-kent double-life super-man who disappears at the drop of hat. just because a man marries a second wife doesnt mean he wont still spend his time, money, love and affection on the 1st. blade of seperation my ar..m!

for the record i actually agree that the most considerate thing would've been to talk to his wife about it first as it is something that will effect her and the marriage in general. as far as i'm aware there is no legal onus on him within islam to do so. by talk to i mean "notification of intent". however it may be that a husband is required to inform her as sister rachel said, on the grounds that allah swt commands us to be kind and just with our wives. one thing that would be interesting to think about however: did the prophet always notify each of his other wives before taking a new one? if not, was he "unkind or unjust" for not doing so? i cant think of cases of the prophet doing that and if its clearly proven that a man doesnt need to ask his first wife's permission, why should he talk about it with her beforehand? is there some onus on us to talk about halal and pious acts with all and sundry, before we do them?

And of course it will have a huge impact. Suddenly her husband will be there only half the time and there will no doubt be many, many impacts on her day to day living.

So why focus on the fact that the woman is complaining about her husband taking another wife, when the point is intended to make men realise there is a way of going about doing this with kindness and justice - surely requirements when it comes to the treatment of a wife

i focused on the woman complaining about him taking another wife, because as i've already demonstrated, the article WASNT ABOUT THE CORRECT METHOD of entering a polygamous marriage, the article is a piece of filth where the author thinks polygamy is this bad thing ("arrow of misfortune") that hurts women (it "burns" and "cuts" yadyadyada) and how men are bad for practicing it (because they "turn away" and they somehow steal away her "lofty cloud of dignity etc). furthermore it goes on to imply that a man who we may all agree was inconsiderate, was somehow to blame for his wife trying to jump out of a window. IF the article had been focused on the man's lack of hikma then maybe I would've focused on that. instead the article was focused on other things, so i focused on them.

Rather it points out the lack of hikmah in the way some men tell their wives this news.

yes,a main problem here is not whether or not they have talked ABOUT it, but the fact he didnt notify her beforehand that he was actually going to do it and the question is... is this something the prophet did and is there some kind of obligation on the man to do so? personally out of kindess i believe he should, although i dont think the prophet always did this, because i've never read anything about it.

another valid point i think is: .... is the wife who clearly dislikes polygamy and doesnt want her husband to take another wife suddenly going to become accepting of it if he notifies her that he's going to take another wife before doing so? from the the way the article sounds she probably still would've jumped. all you have to do is scroll up and see what the author thought of the husband and polygamy in general.

in the case of the article in question, A: from the sounds of the woman i can see why the brother wanted to take a second wife, B: i dont think she would've been capable of rational discussion about polygamy, C: her actions were a lot worse than his why the focus on his?

maybe she wouldnt have jumped, maybe she would've merely reacted like:

"If my husband marrys a second wife I will break his neck."

since thats the kind of attitude some women apparently agree on:

"hey cuz ill second u on that"

as for women's jealousy:

He said: “Yes. But Allah has helped me prevail upon it, so it has submitted.”

Even Aisha got jealous so imagine your average Muslimah.

i suggest the sisters try and prevail upon THEIR jealousy, instead of making it look like its mans fault for their "devil"s, as the hadith put it. because thats what the article essentially did. it wasnt about how he was inconsiderate for not telling her first, it was a rant against polygamy and men in general and tried to blame the man for her jealousy and her jumping out the window. why should we be held back from pious acts and rewards from allah(insha'allah) by our wive's jealousy?

this being another classic quote from the article:

A woman’s jealousy might drive her to an unpraiseworthy outcome – like murder (or suicide), for instance – as comes in the following news report:

which is the man's fault HOW?????? astaghfirallah...... allah swt says "no soul shall bear the burden of the another" and yet whilst it might not say it in so many words this article implies that the man is somehow at least partly to blame for these women's actions. the whole article is not so subtly screaming "yeh she got jealous(shaitan) and did mega-haram... BUT HE DROVE HER TO IT!" by doing a pious act LOL astaghfirallah!!!!!!!

Knowing how some women are, I think she did that to herself to make her husband feel guilty. I seriously don't like how some women act, spiteful, vindictive. Women! Alhamdulillah it's at times like these that I'm glad that I'm not a man lol

“I was shown the hellfire and that the majority of its dwellers were women who were ungrateful.” It was asked, ‘Do they disbelieve in Allah?’ (or are they ungrateful to Allah?) He replied, “They are ungrateful to their husbands and are ungrateful for the favors and the good done to them. If you have always been good to one of them and then she sees something in you, she will say, ‘I have never received any good from you’”

[al-Bukhari]

I think a lot of brothers have trouble treating the first wife correctly, let alone taking a second. Brothers never worry about falling into sin with the first, why should they care about the second, third or fourth?!

please akhi, which brothers do you speak of? those brothers i know who are married and actually know about their religion are very concerned about how they treat their wives and as far as i can tell are pretty good husbands. i'm not married yet but i would like to think that i would worry verry much about falling into sin with my wife(s).


hehehehe i think thats everything i wanna say

assalamu alaikum

p.s sorry if anyone ever feels like i'm having a go at them personally, i want you to know i'm only having a go at ideas, but not at any of you personally.
may allah swt reward you all insha'allah

[lailahaillallah]

hmmm, now should i have a second thought about pretending to be a brother since poeple started calling me brother again??
nah, i still don't feel like it

OMG I"M SO SORRY.
i have most humbly edited that post.

astaghfirallah

[AmeenahY]

It's hardly talking to all and sundry about committing halal acts when talking about the marrying of another woman. Just the first wife would suffice.

And I think any woman who jumps out of a window for any reason has some other psychological problems happening. I don't reckon it just comes out of the blue, so wouldn't her kind, Allah (s.w.t.) fearing husband have understood his wife's emotional state sufficiently to understand the wisdom he needed to show to his wife in this matter? I mean, if he is so compelled to follow rasul'Allah (s.a.w.) then compassion to his wife, who clearly had some weird things going on in her head, would be of importance.

Personally, the notion of polygyny is fine for me. But for some women it is something that does cut and burn them emotionally. They may ultimately accept it, but it is something painful for some women. It doesn't mean they reject the sunnah because their emotional attachment to their partner is so strong.

I just don't think you can make marriage an emotionless phenomena, which is somehow the way you are portraying it.

We all know polygamy is allowed. We all know it is sunnah. To suggest something which is sunnah is not good, is naturally not something we agree with.

I just ask you don't take the emotional state out of women because there is plenty of evidence in the Qur'an and sunnah as to the emotional state of women compared with men and the weakness associated with this.

Honestly, if a man doesn't cherish his wife's emotions and understand her sensitivities, then he is not much of a husband.

My two cents' worth.

Wa alaikum salam,
Rachel

[amatul_rahmaan]

did the prophet always notify each of his other wives before taking a new one?

i would really like to know the answer of this question. how did the prophet's wives found out about his marraiges? was it from him or from someone else?? was it before he married or after he got married??

[amatul_rahmaan]

OMG I"M SO SORRY.
i have most humbly edited that post.

astaghfirallah

it's ok brother, you are the second or third one who said brother this week.

although you have edited your post kindely, i will have to keep mine so other poeple will realise that i'm a sister

sorry i have no other options.

[lailahaillallah]

I just ask you don't take the emotional state out of women because there is plenty of evidence in the Qur'an and sunnah as to the emotional state of women compared with men and the weakness associated with this.

women can have all the emotion they want, i'm not claiming they cant. but just because islam claims that women are emotional doesnt mean they shouldnt strive to keep them within certain limits and strive towards rationality. i never claimed marriage shuold be an emotionaless phenomena, merely that men and women should both act with hikma and sabr towards each other and try to prevail over their jealousy and other more negative emotions, and hopefully try and view any given thing in life and their marriage from the islamic point of view and not through our mere whims or cultural-goggles.

lest we all end up jumping out of windows.


hehehe why do i always have to update my posts 30000x abdulahad

[lailahaillallah]

it's ok brother, you are the second or third one who said brother this week.

although you have edited your post kindely, i will have to keep mine so other poeple will realise that i'm a sister

sorry i have no other options.

we need an "introductions" section on the forum so anytime someone new joins they can introduce themselves and we'll all know. i dunno.. i think it might be the colours in your avatar .. use an avatar with bright pastel colours, hot pink/baby blue, and no one will doubt your femininity lol maybe throw in a few cutesywootsy animals like fluffy pink bunnies or something. i dunno heh

[AmeenahY]

i never claimed marriage shuold be an emotionaless phenomena, merely that men and women should both act with hikma and sabr towards each other and try to prevail over their jealousy and other more negative emotions.

So we agree then?