Category Archives: Polygamy

Seeking Sister Wife fans called out Garrick for using his religion as an excuse to be with multiple women. Pic credit: TLC

Seeking Sister Wife star Garrick Merrifield hasnt exactly come across as a fan favorite on the show, and they called him out recently for using his religion as an excuse to have multiple wives.

Garrick and his first wife, Dannielle, were married for nearly 13 years before they divorced to allow their future sister wife, Roberta, to legally enter the United States on a K-1 visa. Roberta lives in Brazil and only speaks Portuguese.

Garrick claimed he was called to polygamy by God, and eventually convinced Dannielle to agree to welcome sister wives into their family.

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During their divorce proceedings in court, Dannielle became emotional as she told a judge that their marriage was irretrievably broken. Garrick and Dannielle have met Roberta in Cabo, a halfway point between the United States and her home country of Brazil, to spend more time with her in person while they await her visa to be approved.

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In a new sneak peek for next weeks upcoming episode, TLC shared a clip of Garrick struggling with leaving Roberta and returning to the United States with Dannielle.

As he wiped away tears from his face, Garrick told cameras, Leaving Roberta will be very hard for me because I love her. While stroking Robertas hair, he looked at his first wife, Dannielle, and told her, I miss Bert.

Several fans think that Garrick is using his religion as an excuse, though, and is manipulating his first wife into accepting a second woman into their relationship.

One fan thought that Garrick is using Gods name in vain, writing, Hes a Christian but screwing his fiance before the marriage. Its all b***s**t using Gods name in vain

Another Seeking Sister Wife fan shared a similar sentiment when they commented, Oh yeah, this has nothing to do with religion. Its an excuse for him. Im not buying it.

Another fan thought that Garrick used religion as a way to convince Dannielle to allow Garrick to marry Roberta.

They wrote, What a creep!! He convinced his wife to accept his cheating by saying its Gods will! His wife is stupid too!!! He just wanted a younger model! Its pretty evident he no longer loves Danielle!! She was stupid to give up all her legal rights!! He is disgusting!!!

The Merrifields join their fellow polygamous castmates the Snowdens, who faced some legal trouble earlier this week, as well as the Clarks, and the Winders, who are the shows only Mormon polygamists.

Fans of the show can tune in next week to catch up on some more entertaining reality tv, polygamy-style.

Seeking Sister Wife airs on Mondays at 8/7c on TLC.

Originally posted here:

Seeking Sister Wife fans call out Garrick Merrifield for using religion as an excuse to have multiple wives - Monsters and Critics

Born into a life of service. Thats how Princess Sikhanyiso Dlamini, the firstborn of Eswatinis new generation of royals, describes her life.

The princess, the eldest of King Mswati IIIs 36 children, also serves as the countrys minister of information and communication technology.

Her father, who has been on the throne since his 18th birthday, is the last absolute monarch on the African continent. This makes him not only her father and king, but also her employer. Despite describing her relationship with her father as quite formal from a young age, Princess Sikhaniysos admiration for him is quite clear.

I would refer to him as the wisest person I know, as an inventory of information, she told ABC News. He has avid experience in leadership and exposure to different cultures and world fora where he has been representing Africa. Hes become a reference point even for world leaders.

Although she has been very vocal in her criticism of her fathers polygamy in the past, her views on the matter have mellowed with time.

My understanding of men now is different from what I thought before, she said. When you dont know that other people exist then you cant take precautions Ive learned a lot since I was younger, since Ive grown older and my opinions have been altered.

According to an aide, King Mswati III, who has been married 15 times, currently has 10 wives. He rules by decree and has faced scathing criticism from rights groups, trade unions and the media, especially for his lavish lifestyle. Theres also increasing demand for political reform. His daughter downplays the detractions.

So much has been said about the king. So much has been said about Eswatini, she noted. The propaganda out there, the narrative out there is contrary to the situation on the ground. In every home you have your children who are obedient, your children who are disobedient, you have those that are disruptive and who want to make noise and create a story that is not actually there Im not really sure what those people are referring to. But for how [the people] view the king, they view him as a father figure, as a spiritual figure. They see the king as somebody reachable, loving and caring.

Succession is not something that is openly discussed in Eswatini. According to the princess: In other monarchies, that conversation is normal and specific. In Eswatini, that conversation is sacred. The succession process in Eswatini is both hereditary and elective. The House of Dlamini dynasty goes as far back as 400 years ago and it is an undisturbed line, so it will be somebody who is born from the House of Dlamini. A male.

Her Royal Highness Princess Sikhanyiso Dlamini, the eldest daughter of the king of Eswatini, sits under a tree during an interview in Luve, Eswatini, Aug. 28, 2015.

A little known fact about the small landlocked kingdom is that King Mswati jointly rules with his mother, Queen Ntfombi. By tradition, the king reigns with his mother or a ritual substitute, the Ndlovukati (literal meaning She-Elephant). The former was viewed as the administrative head of state and the latter as a spiritual and national head of state, with real power counterbalancing that of the king. But during the long reign of Sobhuza II, the role of the Ndlovukati became more symbolic.

Educated at St Edmunds College in the U.K. and the University of Sydney, Princess Sikhanyiso puts her masters degree in digital communication to good use in her role as minister of information and communication technology. She also studied drama at Biola University in California. It is, however, her role as mother that she enjoys most at the moment. Baby Phikolwezwe Phiko Kukhanya Phasika Elihu Dlamini turned 1 on April 10. He is the kings seventh grandchild.

Sikhanyiso said motherhood is the best experience yet. I have a new earned respect for women, the sacrifices that we make for our children you have to juggle everything at the same time."

She went on, "I also appreciate the role of men in childrearing we should all play our part. I have a renewed impetus, even in the workplace, to say I want to make Eswatini a better Eswatini for my son and the generations to come -- for him to grow up in a different Eswatini that is more advanced, economically and holistically.

As if the roles of royal, minister and mother isnt enough, Princess Sikhanyiso is also an aspiring actress and rapper known as "Pashu" in Eswatini. During her brief stay in Malaysia for an internship program, she recorded a single titled "Hail Your Majesty" in honor of her father.

She said, I suppose most royals have the artistic side to them. We have those that play musical instruments, some do sport, some join the army. People would tell me I have a mellifluous voice and so I thought to branch into rapping and I thought it was a way to express myself because, you know, when you grow up in the palace it is an isolated life really .... so I needed to find an outlet somewhere and I didnt have a diary so my diary was my pen and the studio.

For now, though, she only raps in the shower.

To be honest if I wasnt so preoccupied with all the formal work, I would love to pursue a rap career," she admitted. "I actually wanted to when I was in the States but our roles and responsibilities had us confined to just simply academia. But I would love to Timberland can you hear me?

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Princess Sikhanyiso Dlamini of Eswatini is looking to the future while embracing her roots - ABC News

YouTube has launched its first YouTube Africa Reading Challenge, an online reading marathon featuring authors, influencers and key opinion leaders across Africa.

In a bid to help popularise the work of African authors across the continent, the personalities will read extracts from The Secret Lives of Baba Segis Wives, a novel by the Nigerian poet Lola Shoneyin.

The book is an entertaining, perceptive and enlightening portrayal of polygamy in modern-day Nigeria. It reveals the struggles, rivalries, intricate family politics, and the interplay of personalities and relationships within the complex private world of a polygamous union.

The novel emerged as the top choice by Africans in a Google Africa survey conducted last July, which asked social media followers which novel by an African author they would like to see read live on YouTube.

A total 40 people across Africa have since been selected to kick off the YouTube Africa Challenge, and will be reading from its pages, encouraging others to join them too.

Among the notable names joining the reading challenge are:

Read more from the original source:

Reading marathon to drive African readers to African authors - TimesLIVE

D. Michael Quinn was once among Mormonisms most celebrated historians, lauded for his memory, work ethic and charisma even prompting predictions that he would become the official historian for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or one of the faiths governing apostles.

Quinn, who was discovered dead Wednesday of unspecified causes at his home in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., saw no conflict between the churchs history and his faith.

Still, his compulsion to understand every detail of the Latter-day Saint past, starting in his teen years in the 1960s, put him on a collision course with his church. It would culminate in September 1993, when the Yale-trained scholar was drummed out of Utah-based church for apostasy based on his historical writings about women and the priesthood, along with polygamy.

That same month, four other writers and feminists were excommunicated and one was disfellowshipped, a less-severe punishment. Together, they became known as the September Six.

The 77-year-old Quinn became the first of them to die and arguably the most tragic. He published critical contradictions in church history, but the historian was no critic.

This article is published through the Utah News Collaborative, a partnership of news organizations in Utah that aim to inform readers across the state. To read the full story click here.

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Historian D. Michael Quinn, who was booted from the church as part of the 'September Six' but remained a believer, dies at 77 - Blue Mountain Eagle

On September 24, 1890, faced with the imminent destruction of their church and way of life, religious leaders reluctantly issue the Mormon Manifesto in which they command all Latter-day Saints to uphold the anti-polygamy laws of the nation. The leaders had been given little choice: If they did not abandon polygamy they faced federal confiscation of their sacred temples and the revocation of basic civil rights for all members of the church.

Followers of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had been practicing the doctrine of plural marriage since the 1840s. The best available evidence suggests that the church founder, Joseph Smith, first began taking additional wives in 1841, and historians estimate he eventually married more than 50 women. For a time, the practice was shrouded in secrecy, though rumors of widespread polygamy had inspired much of the early hatred and violence directed against the Latter-day Saints in Illinois. After establishing their new theocratic state centered in Salt Lake City, the church elders publicly confirmed that plural marriage was a central LDS belief in 1852.

The doctrine was distinctly one-sided: LDS women could not take multiple husbands. Nor could just any LDS man participate. Only those who demonstrated unusually high levels of spiritual and economic worthiness were permitted to practice plural marriage, and the church also required that the first wife give her consent. As a result of these barriers, relatively few men had multiple wives. Best estimates suggest that men with two or more wives made up only 5 to 15 percent of the population of most LDS communities.

Even though only a tiny minority of Latter-day Saints practiced plural marriage, many church leaders were very reluctant to abandon it, arguing that to do so would destroy the LDS way of life. Ironically, though, the Mormon Manifestos call for an end to polygamy actually paved the way to greater Mormon-Gentile cooperation and may well have helped ensure the religions lasting vitality.

Originally posted here:

The Mormon Church officially renounces polygamy - HISTORY

The arrest of polygamist leader Lyle Jeffs, evictions of polygamist families and new studies on crippling genetic disorders among small ultra-orthodox or fundamentalist Mormon communities in rural Utah have made headlines this summer.

This spotlight on polygamy is likely to make the majority of Mormons who are nonfundamentalist uncomfortable. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) the mainstream Mormon Church with 15 million members worldwide publicly rejected polygamy in 1890. But to this day, mainstream Mormons encounter stereotypes of polygamy.

As a scholar of Mormonism and gender and a Mormon myself, I know that the truth about Mormonism and polygamy is complicated and confusing. For more than 175 years, polygamy and tensions surrounding it have defined what it means to be a Mormon especially a Mormon man.

Founded by Joseph Smith in 1830, the Mormon movement from its beginnings offered a unique perspective on the religious role of men.

One of the most influential events in the life of Joseph Smith was the death of his 25-year-old brother Alvin in 1823. In 1836, Joseph Smith had a vision of Alvin Smith in heaven. Based on this vision, he developed the Mormon teaching that families could be together in heaven if they underwent religious rites called sealings in Mormon temples. Any faithful Mormon approved by church leaders could perform these sealings.

Due in part to this powerful role it gave to men in helping to save the people they loved and brought to heaven, Mormonism attracted proportionally more male converts than any other American religious movement of the time.

In the early 1830s, Smith extended this view of the role of men to include polygamy as it was practiced by Old Testament prophets like Abraham. Smith taught that a righteous man could help numerous women and children go to heaven by being sealed in plural marriage. Large families multiplied a mans glory in the afterlife. This teaching was established as doctrine in 1843.

Rumors that polygamy was practiced by a small cadre of LDS Church leaders spurred mob violence against early Mormon settlements in Illinois and Missouri. In the face of this opposition, Smith counseled Mormon men to be crafty contemporary scholars have interpreted this to mean alert, wise and resourceful in their practice of polygamy and use of sealings.

After the murder of Joseph Smith in 1845, Mormons migrated to Utah territory in 1847, and there, under the leadership of Brigham Young who succeeded Joseph Smith brought the practice of polygamy out of the shadows. LDS leaders announced plural marriage as an official Mormon Church practice in 1852.

Following Young, Mormon theologians heralded polygamy as a core doctrine and as evidence of patriarchal manliness. By the 1880s, an estimated 20-30 percent of Mormon families practiced polygamy.

However, after the U.S. Civil War, a growing controversy over polygamy united Americans in both the North and South. Politicians, preachers and novelists decried it as an evil equal to slavery.

The United States Supreme Court ruled in Reynolds v. the United States (1878) that polygamy was an odious practice. The court said,

Polygamy has always been odious among the northern and western nations of Europe, and, until the establishment of the Mormon Church, was almost exclusively a feature of the life of Asiatic and of African people. At common law, the second marriage was always void, and from the earliest history of England, polygamy has been treated as an offence against society.

The United States Congress passed the Edmunds-Tucker Act (1887) authorizing the seizure of LDS Church assets and making polygamy a federal offense. Entire families went underground to avoid imprisonment. Mormon men were stereotyped as fanatics who exploited innocent converts to satisfy their sexual degeneracy. Mobs in the American South in the 1880s attacked Mormon missionaries.

Under pressure, LDS Church President Wilford W. Woodruff announced in 1890 that the Mormon Church would no longer sanction plural marriages in adherence with the law of the United States. Still, such marriages continued to be performed among Mormons in Mexico some of whom emigrated from Utah to northern Mexico specifically to continue polygamy or by rogue LDS leaders through the 1920s.

In the 1930s, seven leading Mormon polygamists banded together to form a loose confederation of Mormon fundamentalists to keep polygamy going. Several were excommunicated from the mainstream LDS Church and formed close-knit fundamentalist communities across the West from Canada to Mexico that survive to this day.

While fundamentalist Mormons broke off from the LDS Church in the early 20th century to continue their open practice of polygamy, those who remained members of the LDS Church made a hard turn toward the American mainstream and assimilation.

These mainstream Mormons developed new norms of Mormon manhood that seemed safer to the American public.

Moving away from the stereotype that Mormonism was led by fanatical prophets with multiple wives and long beards, as Mormons assimilated, LDS Church leaders developed a more modern clean-shaven appearance and a bureaucratic, corporate style of managing church affairs.

Between 1890 and 1920, LDS participation in the Boy Scouts (which began in 1911), bans on smoking and alcohol, and conservative sexuality helped to defined this new Mormon manhood. Donny Osmond, Steve Young and Mitt Romney exemplify the modern Mormon norm.

Still, it is my experience as a lifelong Mormon that LDS people with strong cultural and familial ties to the faith commonly believe that polygamy will be a fact of life in heaven. The LDS Church publicly renounced the practice of polygamy in 1890, but it has never renounced polygamy as doctrine, as evidenced in LDS scriptures. It has always permitted and continues to permit men to be married in Mormon temples for the eternities to more than one wife.

This tension between private belief and public image makes polygamy a sensitive subject for Mormons even today.

Read more from the original source:

Explaining polygamy and its history in the Mormon Church

At many times and places, monogamy and other forms of marriage have coexisted peacefullyas theyre increasingly doing in the US today. But at other times theyve been part of dramatic conflicts. Historian Sarah M.S. Pearsall describes particularly intense clashes of cultural attitudes toward marriage that played a role in two uprisings against Spanish colonial rule by Native people: the Guale Rebellion in Spanish Florida and the Pueblo Revolt in New Mexico.

Pearsall writes that Spanish colonists came to the Americas primed to be horrified by polygamy. Through the Reconquista and Spanish Inquisition, it had been a rationale for attacks on Muslims and Sephardic Jews. So Spanish missionaries saw the polygamous marriage models used by some Indigenous Americans as one of the great evils to be rooted out.

Given the limited surviving evidence, Pearsall explains, its harder to tell what the Guale and Pueblo of the time thought about Spanish marriage customs.

The lack of divorce [in Spanish society] must have seemed a bad idea, likely to lead to violent strife, she suggests. The hypocrisy of leaders, who preached celibacy and monogamy but lived outside of them, must have been striking.

Polygamy was important to both Guale and Pueblo societies. In these and many other Native American cultures, having many wives could give a leader ties to other nearby groups, as well as a wealthier and higher-status household. Polygamy also allowed cultures in which captive-taking was common to integrate women and children from rival groups into a household.

In 1597, a Franciscan missionary in Guale land attempted to stop the head leader, Don Juan, from marrying a second wife. Juan and his followers beheaded the friar. This touched off an uprising in which the Guale forces killed five Franciscans and took a sixth captive.

The Pueblo Revolt of 1680 was much larger and more significant than the Guale Rebellion, and it took place in a different context. The long presence of Spanish colonists had prompted many changes in the areas culture. Only a small number of elite households practiced polygamy at this point.

Popay, a spiritual leader, rallied the Pueblo to overthrow Spanish rule, burning temples and rosaries, destroying non-native crops, and leaving their Christian marriages. One witness reported that Popay promised that the Indian who shall kill a Spaniard will get an Indian woman for a wife, and he who kills four will get four women, and he who kills ten or more will have a like number of wives.

Popay appeared to be offering even low-status men the chance to gain power through martial success. Pearsall argues that this represents a radically conservative visiona new kind of social organization in an old form.

In claiming that he would make things as they had been, Popay offered a vision of a society actually transformed by a new basis for status, resources, and authority, she writes.

Polygamy was part of that idealized vision, just as it was a rationale for colonialism for the Spanish and a basic part of social organization for the Guale.

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By: SARAH M. S. PEARSALL

The American Historical Review, Vol. 118, No. 4 (OCTOBER 2013), pp. xx, 1001-1028

Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical Association

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Polygamy, Native Societies, and Spanish Colonists - JSTOR Daily

Women shout slogans during a protest against Turkey's decision to withdraw from the Istanbul Convention in Istanbul, Turkey, 24 March 2021. The Istanbul Convention is an international accord designed to protect women, which was started by the Council of Europe in 2011 for the Prevention of Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, and is signed by 45 European countries as well as the EU as an organization. EFE/EPA/SEDAT SUNA

Women in the Ottoman Empire did not remain silent against discrimination and injustice. They organized activities and published newspapers and magazines to raise their voice in the late 19th and the early 20th century.

With the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the rise of a new republican regime in the 1920s, the reforms put in place by the Turkish president at the time, Kemal Ataturk, banned unequal conditions for women. The Civil Code of 1926 brought equality between men and women and other secular reforms in the 1920s and the 1930s dissolved sharia law for Muslim women. Polygamy was prohibited, and divorce and inheritance rights were recognized. Women gained political rights and universal suffrage in 1934 long before many European countries. All these attempts occurred first in a predominantly Muslim country.

The struggle of women for their rights since the late 1890s in the Ottoman Empire and the vision of Ataturk in the 1930s drew a road map for women on the path of emancipation and fortified their social, political, and legal rights. Thanks to the struggle of women for equality in the Ottoman Empire and the reforms of Ataturk, the public visibility of women increased and equality between men and women were established at least on paper, if not in everyday life and in all places of the country.

However, the relatively liberated space for women was still far from full equal recognition between men and women in all spheres. Women in the rural areas had limited opportunities for economic independence in the post-war period and it was common practice enforcing women in rural areas to marry at an early age. Women who were economically independent were often subject to domestic violence and suffered primarily in silence. The sexist state policies showed itself in the guise of virginity tests, which were widely practiced until 1998 when a new law limited its practice under very strict conditions and only with a magistrate order.

Fast forward to the new millennium, with the rise of the conservative AK Party in 2003, religious-based values started shaping politics and social life in Turkey. There has been an increase in the number of femicide cases and the use of violence against women has been more brutal and ruthless in the last years. The public visibility of femicide cases has surged thanks to the efforts of feminist movements. The We Will Stop Femicide Platform (the Platform hereafter) was established in 2010 in Istanbul by a number of feminist activists who successfully opened new branches across the country to fight against femicide in a relatively short period of time.

In 2020, 408 women were murdered by men. The members of the Platform regularly organize events across Turkey to draw attention to the weakening democratic deliberation in the country. The factors that lead to femicide cannot be reduced to an act of individual violence. The collective factors are evident from the discourse of certain politicians to the men who justify their reasons for harassment of women in the bus and on the street based on patriarchal, religious, and conservative views.

As the mainstream media has been transformed into the mouthpiece of the ruling government, the Platforms activists views are not able to find a widespread outlet. But thanks to the use of digital space and the efforts of activists, each offense against women finds an important place in social media. The activists created a digital memorial website to record the stories of women who were killed by men, explaining how activists use the digital platform to commemorate victims and inform the public about each femicide case. The online dissemination of the stories of murdered women fosters the formation of a public opinion on femicide.

But what makes the activists of the Platform an inclusive democratic social movement lies in their struggle to fight for the right of other vulnerable groups. For example, a group of activists from the Platforms Eskisehir branch expressed that they are protesting the discourse of politicians, violence against women, and violence against the LGBT+ community. Their protest was particularly important after the brutal murder of Hande Kader, who was an LGBT+ activist and sex worker. Kader was murdered by her customers, who later burned her body to the point it was nearly unrecognizable when the police found her in one of Istanbuls forests. Dozens of protests were organised for Kader, and the Platform was one of the leading organizations in the mobilization by using its online presence.

The Platforms activists also support Pride month and state that transgender murders are political murders. Participation in these events is enabled through digital communication. Aside from sharing photos and videos to mobilize more people, the activists organize events to protest court decisions and sexist speeches delivered by politicians. They also take to the streets through night-walk events which have been organised on the March 8 since 2003, to increase the public visibility of women and highlight their liberty of going outside during the night. In later years, these events were violently suppressed by the police.

The activists spent strenuous efforts for the effective implementation of Istanbul Convention, which was first signed by Turkey and many other countries in Istanbul in 2011 to combat violence against women. However, the Presidential decree signed by Erdogan on March 20 2021 declared withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention. This withdrawal created shockwaves across the world and it was condemned. Justice, for many women in Turkey, was butchered and betrayed with this withdrawal. Women were left alone with no sufficient legal protection while striving to survive against femicide and different forms of gender-based violence. Glsm Kav, the Head of the Platform, uttered the perilous implication annulment of the Istanbul Convention, stating: The convention highlights preventive measures and envisions creating a society in which violence cannot flourish. This also indicates an egalitarian society by realizing gender equality in the entire society by all means, including education. The Convention would safeguard the lives of women, dont even think of touching it, but implement it!

Taking new resisting initiatives with the activists of other stigmatized communities by using the digital space, online media, and demonstrating their resilience and resistance, women in Turkey create a network of solidarity with the survivors of other vulnerable groups who have been striving for justice and forced to live on the margins of society. Against all challenges, more than a century-long struggle of women galvanized hopes for a democratic and plural democracy through which the required changes in the political and legal realm can be attained. We all must show our solidarity with this unyielding struggle of women in Turkey and elsewhere who fight for life and dignity. Without the emancipation of women, we all will be the prisoners of our own lives.

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The long struggle of Turkish women to survive - OpenGlobalRights

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Seeking Sister Wifefor the upcoming episode show us that Sidian and Tosha Jones troll a bar in search for a partner. Fans will recall that the duo have already lived a polygamous lifestyle in the past as Tosha jumped from second wife to first wife when the first wife left.

Fans found out in the March 29 episode that Tosha who was previously in a polygamous relationship talked to her mum about it. She thought her mother will feel upset that she and Sidian are looking for a new wife. Tosha is also worried because her mom doesnt know her husband well. She and Sidian are willing to give it another try even if polygamy didnt work the first time.

However, it seems Toshas sister has already spilled that Tosha is looking for another wife, so her mother wanted to know how she and her husband intended to find. Spoilers show that the duo went and trolled a bar looking for their perfect match.

It seems her mother thinks it is a bit offasits often considered as looking for a one-night stand. But Toshaand Sidian dont seeanythingwrong with it. The couple prefer this to findingsomeoneon the internet.

Hollywood Lifereportedthat the Sidian and Tosha chose to go to their favorite bar to hunt for a woman. On getting there, Sidian saw the bartender and he liked her. They made their move and started talking to her.Seeking Sister Wifespoilers revealthat the bartenders name is Faith. The couple first make friendly overtures before talking about their polygamous lifestyle.

Faith didnt seem taken aback. She seemed interested in the polygamous lifestyle and liked the way they talked about it openly. If youre wondering if she gave in, Faith gave them her phone number. Fans will wait to find out how this will play out.

Remember to stay up to date with the latest news on TheOvertimer. Dont forget to visit Gamestingr for great videos, news, and gameplay!

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'Seeking Sister Wife': Sidian And Tosha Go Wife-Hunting At Their Favorite Bar - The Overtimer

It was not Islam that had initiated polygamy rather polygamy was the widespread customary practice in pre-Islamic Arabia which continued in the later ages by distorting the actual revelation of the Quran. The traditional practice of polygamy is one of the patriarchal practices that create discrimination against women by indicating the fact that equality between men and women has not been realised in society. While interpreting the Quranic verses relating to polygamy, jurists belonging to different schools of thoughts, presented diverse observations regarding the wholesale permission and restrictive approval of polygamy. Verse IV: 3 of the Quran which is also known as 'verse of polygamy' says:

'If ye fear that ye shall not be able to deal justly with the orphans, marry women of your choice, two, or three, or four; but if ye fear that ye shall not be able to deal justly (with them), then only one, or (a captive) that your right hands possess. That will be more suitable, to prevent you from doing injustice'.

The classical or traditional jurists interpreted this verse as allowing a man to marry up to four wives, while the modernists as well as contextualists observed that this verse legislates monogamy and allows polygamy only under exceptional circumstances. It will be prudent to note that contextualists emphasise the context and background of the verse. This verse actually urges to ensure proper treatment towards the orphan girls, it does not mean to allow blanket permission of polygamy to the men. During the period of revelation, some male guardians, responsible to manage the wealth of orphaned female children, often engaged in unjust management/misappropriation of the wealth of those children. In order to prevent such mismanagement, the Quran allowed them to marry those female orphans. While permitting marriage, Quran, on one hand limited the number of marriages up to four and on the other hand, envisaged that 'the economic responsibility for maintenance of wife would counterbalance access to the wealth of the orphaned female through the responsibility of management'. The quranic injunction aimed to improve the conditions of weaker segments of the society like orphans and the poor in general.

The key argument of modernists is that while the Quran apparently, allowed polygamy, it added a moral rider to the effect that if a man cannot do justice among co-wives, then he must have only one wife. The meaning of justice does not only imply equality in terms of providing food, shelter, and clothing, it also signifies equality in love, affection, and esteem which is impossible to be rendered by a human being. In support of their argument, modernists relied on the quranic verse IV: 129: 'Ye are never able to be fair and just as between women, even if it is your ardent desire'.

The interpretation of this verse along with the previous verse of polygamy indicated that quranic injunction is functional on two levels: (i) a legal level where limited polygamy was permitted under exceptional circumstances (ii) a moral level where Quran had apparently expected that society would transform with the change of time.

The classical jurists, however, did not consider the 'justice' requirement as a condition precedent to a polygamous marriage rather they left the issue to be decided by the private judgment of every individual husband. Their understanding of quranic verse by giving supremacy to the decisions of individual husbands reflected the notion that men are superior to women. They also relied on the quranic verse II:228:

'And women shall have rights equivalent to the rights against them, according to equitable prevailing practice (al-ma'aruf), but men have a degree [of advantage] over them [them]'.

In interpreting this verse, traditionists preferred to emphasise the later portion of the verse that gives superiority of men over women disregarding the parity of men and women. Contextualists while negating the interpretation of traditionists construed the provision to imply that 'men have a degree of advantage over women' was reflected in the legal status of men and women in the previous context which should have no legal implications in the modern context. Ignoring the significance of context in interpreting quranic verses, conservative jurists hold that polygamy as a response to multifarious situations of necessity is a better option than monogamy practiced in the west where positive laws leave loopholes giving tacit approval to extra marital sexual liaisons. Here, it can be argued that the demerits of positive laws cannot be used as a shield to justify polygamy because wholesale permission of polygamy does not reflect the true essence of the quranic injunction.

Though there exists difference of opinions regarding polygamy, contextual interpretation of the above mentioned quranic verses suggests that an unrestricted licence for polygamy is contrary to the spirit of the Quran. While adopting contextual interpretations of quranic injunctions, Islamic communities have imposed restrictions on polygamous marriages in various countries, including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Syria, Iraq, and Morocco and even there is an example of complete abolition of polygamy as in the case of Tunisia, by virtue of the practice of ijtihad. The Tunisian reformers, by virtue of the practice of ijtihad, highlighted that in addition to a husband's financial ability to maintain a couple of wives, the quranic injunction also requires complete impartial treatment among co-wives. This injunction of the Quran should not be taken as a moral instruction but as a legal condition precedent which requires proving impartiality among co-wives through adequate evidence. The reformers maintained that under modern social and economic conditions, the stipulation of impartial treatment was impossible to fulfil and accordingly they declared to prohibit the practice of polygamy under Tunisian Law of Personal Status 1957.

In Bangladesh under the Muslim Family Laws Ordinance (MFLO) 1961, the practice of polygamous marriages has been restricted by imposing few conditions that include the requirement of taking consent from the existing wife and obtaining permission from the Arbitration Council. In addition to legislative restriction and prohibition, judges interpreted the quranic verse of polygamy progressively either by restricting, prohibiting or condemning the practice of polygamy in a large number of judicial decisions (Cases among others include Jesmin Sultana v. Muhamamd Elias 17 BLD 1997 4, Amena Khatun v. Serajuddin Sardar 17 DLR, (1965) 687). Judges also emphasised the condition of equal and impartial treatment that required to be fulfilled by the husband desirous to have more than one wife.

In the Jesmin Sultana case, the High Court Division (HCD) recommended that Section 6 of the MFLO should be repealed and replaced by a section prohibiting polygamy altogether. While coming to this pragmatic decision the court stated that Muslim jurists and scholars are nearly unanimous on the view that it is practically impossible to deal with co-wives justly, and so the quranic injunction that a second wife may be taken under a specific condition is virtually a prohibition. It is noted that though the Appellate Division did not agree with the decision of the HCD, the observation of the HCD regarding polygamy carries significance and may work as a significant guideline in terms of the interpretation of the cases of polygamy.

The above discussion leads to the proposition that the underlying message of the Holy Quran regarding the injunction of polygamy disregards any discriminatory practices against women by virtue of the practice of polygamy. This Quranic proposition corresponds with the equality and non-discrimination principle of the international human rights law. In addition, the imposition of justice requirement in case of taking second wife implies that Quranic message not only conforms with the equality principle but also is significant to ensure a dignified life for women.

The writer is an Assistant Professor, Department of Law, University of Dhaka.

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What does the Quran say regarding polygamy? - The Daily Star