Why do Muslim men think it is OK to treat their wives like chattel (personal property)?

Question

I am not opposed to polygamy but it should be consensual and voluntary. With Muslim men it is rarely either.

Why do you need so many wives? How do you make them all feel special when they are just one of many?

Maybe that is a good question for any polygamous relationship.

Please explain this to us and I will try hard not to be too judgmental, but forgive me if I fail... lol

CubsterShura · Accepted Answer

Ok that was SUCH a big generalization. The question really pissed me off. I'm Muslim, am surrounded by amazing Muslim men in my family growing up. No man in any of my parent's side of relatives is polygamous except one distant uncle who has two wives, and his second wife himself proposed to him and they are doing fine. I had a tutor in my childhood whose husband had another wife. I can recall an incident when one of her husband's other wives called her on some pretty serious emergency matter and it sounded like my tutor genuinely cares for her.

However, I am not gonna pretend that it's all good. I have seen polygamous marriages that are going well, and I have seen some devastating ones. Even though I myself have an amazing monogamous father and I have an example of polygamy going fine within my family, both of my besties have polygamous fathers who have ruined the family by polygamy, like literally I can't relate to my besties on this matter at all because both of them detest their fathers while I'm a daddy's spoiled princess. And I've heard of other families being broken by polygamy too! Let's just say that I've seen enough of them to know what I'm saying when I say what I think of polygamy.

The thing that all these 'ruined' polygamous marriages shared in common was the fact that the husbands did not treat their wives equally or fairly. There was always some kind of bias and they did not care for them equally, provide for them equally or even abused one of the wives. To which I say, the Qur'an clearly mentions that if you are afraid you won't be able to treat 2, 3, or 4 wives equally then marry only one.

While we're still on the topic of Islam, it's the only religion that put a limit on how many wives you can have. Other religions don't even do that. You can marry how many every you want in a huge proportion of the other religions out there.

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

You know, some children who a 3-4 year old doesn't want to give a toy to anyone. Like this... take ownership of the toy.
That child becomes obsessed and psychopathic when he grows up.
Men think themselves to be superior to women. They think, they can have women.
For they, many things are forbidden for women but everything is free for men
And more strong than women. This strong use on women/children/animals.

Because they learning from own parents.
If he's been subjected to violence from his family, he beats women.
If harassed/rape , he becomes a harasser/rapist in the future.
Whatever he's had in the past, he does it when he grows up.

PS: My English is not very good. I hope, i can explain...

Gramkabir · Accepted Answer

I think the question was asked to Muslim people and answer was given based on perception. In Quran, polygamy is not an encouraging act. Its described that a Muslim guy can marry 4 women at a time and there are few hard conditions.
1. You've to treat every wife equally and it's literally. For example, if husband buys a dress for her one wife, then he's bound to buy same dress for other wives too.
2. You've to take permission from your other wife/s if you want to marry your 2nd or 3rd marriage. If they don't permit you can't marry.

There are other hard restrictions too. This was allowed because during establishing Islam there were imbalance between men and women due to many wars due to too many battle fought by Muslim men.

Again this is not an as easy as Muslim men do it in their own wish. They completely disobeyed the main rules of Islam.

In Islam, women has empowered and honored more than man but it's not followed by men.

There's nothing to be judgmental about this... It's a religion and no one is asked follow without their will.

esotericstory · Accepted Answer

Here is an article from a Belgian newspaper.  Its about a wife of a sheik who visited Brussels. In their hotel she locked up her household maids as slaves. She considered this to be normal to have household slaves. These girls didn't have a contract, they were forced to work without pay for the wife of this sheik and the princesses, their daughters. The article says the princesses haven't seen anything else in their entire lives and found it absolutely normal that they owned household slaves.  If you ask why do Muslim men treat their wives like chattel. There is no other answer that I can give than to say that its value in their culture. Some of them think it ought to be that way. Am I saying all Muslim men are like that? No of course not but its certainly a phenomenon in their culture.

OlderAndWiser · Answer

My impression is that Islam is not just a religion but a culture that directs most of the practices within Muslim societies. If you grow up in a culture which accepts women being treated as you have described, and you know nothing of other cultures except that you've been taught they are evil, then you continues the practices that you know and you don't perceive any alternative.

Lucky1974 · Answer

Your opinion on Muslims, in particular Muslim men is IGNORANT at best. Had you been a intelligent person you will have phrased your question/s as ‘Why are ‘SOME’ Muslim men...’ Instead you have made many ASSUMPTIONS which you have applied to ALL Muslim men. Just as not all white people are not ignorant racists, thugs, or rapists; likewise not all Muslim men are like this or that. There are some Muslim men who are oppressive in their treatment of their wives, and some who are gentlemenly. THINK BEFORE YOU ACT SPEAK OR WRITE A PUBLIC MESSAGE.

Jjpayne · Answer

There is a place for men to protect their wives but past that it is not ok to do that and even for protection "personal property' is pushing it. The only way I can see it being helpful is that women can be emotional and put themselves at times in dangerous situations especially in Muslim areas. In areas that are more risky such as in different areas if the country with different ways of handling society, it might be worth strongly holding on to your wife and talking sense into her, as a supportive man and husband but never in a way that demeans her only in ways to keep her safe

loveslongnails · Answer

Laurie, I wish I could tell you, but I'm not going to devote a single click of my life's clock to studying the Quran or trying to figure out Islam. Not worth it. But here's what I experienced while on vacation. I was in Mexico at a resort - and it was hot weather. There was, I presumed, a Muslim woman dressed head to toe in garments covering her pregnant body, while her pot bellied husband drank and smoked his hookah in the lounge chair next to her. The few times I saw them interact during the week were indicative of the "she's my property" attitude, but I will also say that she didn't seem to mind one bit. As Older/Wiser pointed out, if that's all you've ever known and it's deeply ingrained into your culture (as is the religion), then thinking otherwise would be foreign, perhaps rebellious, and no doubt approaching blasphemy, I would think.

Anonymous · Answer

Polygamy in Islam is allowed based on the first conditions that you have mentioned. In addition, man must love and treat all wives equally. It has to be consensual and other existing wives also have to agree for that. Otherwise it is not legal in islam.

Apart from this, it is STRONGLY reccomended that your other wives be the person who need husband. Like a widowed women with kids, or a women who is old but could not get married, or women who is divorced from an abuser.

Its not as simple as it has now been made. And at least in my generation, now it has very much died out. It is hard to justify that you can love two persons equally.

PUA_Alfa · Answer

I live in Turkey. 95% of the people are muslim. There is no marrying with 4 women. There are strict alimony againt men. 2.5 millions men are paying alimony to their ex wifes permanently. Yes you didn't hear wrong. From divorcing until die they pay alimony to their wifes. Even if they marry with an other woman, they continue to pay alimony. Misandry is so high in Turkey.

Laws promote women to accuse any men without evidence or proofs. Courts give punishment to the men without evidences. There are a lot of falce accusations of rape and harassment cases in Turkey. When courts understand the accusation is false, they don't give punishment to the women. Our conservative, religious party never gave a little bit punishment to the false accuser women.
Feminism made our men miserable. A lot of men suffer from feminism.

And laurielsulvit. İf you don't know what happens in our country, please shut up your feminist mouth! Because you harm men and their rights.

R_Cakes91 · Answer

I lived in a Muslim country for a semester in college and quickly learned that many of these practices are power plays against women. The Qaran gives women many rights but many Islamic nations refuse to give women the rights that what their religion says they should have.

normalice · Answer

It's a religious tradition that, for some reason, correlates to limited resources in a region. We stopped doing that in the U. S. about about the same time we started developing reliable ways to distribute food from large farm. It is absolutely not a muslim-only thing..

Jamie05rhs · Answer

Well, it isn't just Muslims. This happens in the Western world as well. I think the core belief behind this concept is that a woman's purpose is to provide children for a man. Therefore polygamy is acceptable because love (or the way we generally see love) doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if she is in love with him and it doesn't matter if he truly loves her, either. But isn't that the same in many Western marriages? People get married to "start a family.". As long as the wife gives her husband sex (or at least gives the appearance that she's giving him sex), and as long as the husband buys her a house and gives her money to buy groceries and go shopping at Macy's,... what's love got to do with it?

Hispanic-Cool-Guy · Answer

Their Holy book the Qur'an says women are mens till which means property and it even commands to smack your wife if she acting cocky and rebellious.

Qur'an 4:34:

Men are in charge of women by [right of] what Allah has given one over the other and what they spend [for maintenance] from their wealth.

So righteous women are devoutly obedient, guarding in [the husband's] absence what Allah would have them guard.

But those [wives] from whom you fear arrogance - [first] advise them; [then if they persist], forsake them in bed; and [finally], strike them.

But if they obey you [once more], seek no means against them. Indeed, Allah is ever Exalted and Grand.

_SOARER_ · Answer

You are only supposed to have as many wives as you can afford in Islam. You must provide each one with a dignified life.
Tbh, Islam's acceptance of polygamy is my biggest gripe with their faith, however most muslim men only marry one woman because its all they can support or desire.

SpiderManFan2002 · Answer

Not all Muslim men do- and there are men who aren't Muslim who treat women like property as well.

And the four wives rule, is often abused a lot.

A man can marry up to four times, if he respects his first wife and if he has her permission- and if he treats all his wives equally, and has a legitimate reason to marry more than once.

Shezadi · Answer

The biggest evidence of respect is that many Muslim men don't touch women before marriage, whereas in western culture, men touch women before marriage.

And regarding polygamy, even though I am not a fan of polygamy but in western culture, many men use and dump ten girlfriends before getting married. At least, in polygamy, those ladies have some identity, whereas many men use and dump ten girls in their life without marriage.

Lliam · Answer

For the same reason Western cultures did well into the 20th century and some other (of the more orthodox) religious sects still do? For the same reason some men today are pissed about feminism and women's rights? It's not just Muslims. And even among Muslims it is more of a thing with Wahhabi and fundamentalist-types. The diversity among Muslims is similar to that of Christians, and Jews.

Ceasar97 · Answer

well, that is how they were raised. Their culture is a lot different from western culture and so is their stance on marriage and women. The Tosh Ma haul was built for one of the wives of a Muslim wife in India because that was his most beloved wife, she produced the most children for him, which probably made her feel special. I don't agree with non-consensual polygamy, but I also have a western view on life.

DeeDeeDeVour · Answer

I don't think that's what's implied by the Quran. I believe the Quran is misinterpreted so much to believe that wives are simply personal properties of men. That's what muslim men are brainwashing innocent women to believe. It's backward & degrading.

ZELLxoxo · Answer

A Muslim man can never take a second wife without the consent of the first wife. you know nothing.  And the polygamy isn't so widespread as you might think.

Anonymous · Answer

wtf you loser bitch? all of these pictures are about selling women. not as their wives. by the way polygamy much better than cheating the wife. 🤷🏻‍♀️ so many non Muslim men cheating their wives, a. k. a mistress. I thought non Muslim guys good at keeping secret from their wives. lol.

Gedaria · Answer

It's a typical, thing that men have done to women, thinking men are superior to women and treat the like second class citizens. Thankfully they are at long last get away from this , why do you think men are complaining about women's rights...

Sweetnessxoxo · Answer

I think it's not religious but cultural/ traditions there is some real fucked up things going on that doesn't have to do with religion and it makes Muslims look bad

Why do Muslim men think it is OK to treat their wives like chattel (personal property)?

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