After reading about how Newt Gingrich’s former wife felt when she was presented with the offer to accept another woman in her husband’s life, I finally understood how my husband’s first – and present – wife must have felt when he told her that he wanted another wife. No wind, just rain.

Just like Newt’s current wife, I knew that my husband-to-be was already married but he wanted ME.  That was enough to stroke an already fragile ego to rationalize the decision to continue with the relationship.

He told me at the start that he was going to remain married because she’d been with him for years helping him with everything. Basically he told me "I love you, I want you to be my wife, but it has to be polygyny because I can’t leave my wife".

Insisting that he divorce his first wife in order to clear the road for a second marriage would be harming an existing family. And it is not obligatory for the Muslim husband, if he wants to take a second wife, to have the approval of the first wife, (which she had already given). It is, however, the matter of good manners, and kind treatment that he should try to reduce the feelings of hurt, which are natural in women in such cases.

My uncle didn't tell his wife he wanted to marry again, because he didn't want to deal with the drama. He would rather deal with it after-the-fact and deal with a bit of yelling and screaming for a month or two; instead of a drama that could last for years if his first wife found out ahead of the second marriage taking place. My husband’s wife had a breakdown when she witnessed our marriage.

The men in my family are weak. They may appear to be strong, but under all of the brawn, tailored suits, and rich lifestyle is a man-boy jumping up and down whenever he sees a challenging opportunity in the guise of a beautiful woman. Sometimes beauty is not even a necessity. Any mortal – with a heartbeat and devoid of a pendulous organ, can get their blood flowing.

You see, in Islam men can marry up to four wives, concurrently. It is a desire that is widely succumbed to in certain non-Western cultures. In America, these marriages are more prevalent among the African American converts to Islam. Though polygyny is illegal in America, usually only one wife has the status of being legally married; subsequent marriages are contracts performed in the mosques but have the same Islamic status as the legal contract.

In the Quran it says that a man can marry two, or three, or four wives, but one is better if he fears he won’t be able to be evenhanded with them. Most Muslim men ignore that last part. Their ego tells them they can handle it and not to be outdone, some even have them all live in the same home.  

As a rule, whatever he does for one wife, he MUST do for the other. It is impossible to be fair like that on a daily basis, without any reminders. Someone usually winds up with hurt feelings or neglected. More often than not, it is the first wife. The newness of the second marriage, and jealousy due to the new wife being much younger than her can wreak havoc on a woman’s self-esteem.

Poor implementation of polygyny has been a major cause of divorce and the break-up of households; but there have been some successful unions, albeit stressful.

Would these men, who undertake this optional form of marriage, be held accountable for how they led their families any differently from those who remain monogamous? We don’t know, but their first consideration when making this judicious decision should be fear of Allah (GOD). Then using wisdom, when exercising the authority that they have been given in marriage.

A major decree such as this must be weighed carefully with respect to its benefits and drawbacks. A husband should strive all he can to appease, reassure, and satisfy his first wife. In doing so, it would ease and mitigate the effect of the issue that is being forced upon her. My husband tried, but he was not   successful in easing his wife’s pain.

I met my husband when I was 21 years old, and he 46. Our first chat occurred when he called his Mom, who is my aunt, in Cairo. He lived in Atlanta and hadn’t visited home in over twenty years. He had called  to ask around for a  young bride to bring to America. I was an orphan child. Raised by my mother’s aunt, and spoke with him briefly one morning. His Mom tried to persuade him to talk to someone else, but he wanted to talk to me. Our conversations started out innocently. He’d ask about my life in Cairo. I’d ask about his life in America.

We exchanged pictures; we’d talk on the phone and Skype– sometimes for hours. We fell in love. When he asked me to marry him, I was surprised and flattered. He’d only known me a short while – but he said there can be no friendship between a man and a woman. A man and a woman must either be respectfully distant with each other or they should marry. There are no long courtships. If a couple likes each other, then marriage must happen quickly to avoid a sin occurring. That sin being Sex.

Pre-marital sex is a taboo in Islam, as it is in many other religions. There was no chance of us having sex because we lived thousands of miles from each other. But then he told me he was coming to Cairo, with his wife, the following week. Well, that changed the program.

It didn’t bother me that he was already married. I knew that he could, if he was capable, have up to four wives. My naïveté  and ideas of a fantasy married life took over my rational thoughts. After he arrived in Cairo we saw each other almost every day, as a family. His wife accompanied us everywhere. Later I found out that she thought that I was acting as a tour guide for her husband, since he had been away from home so long.

He was a tall, dark, and not too handsome guy, but he made up for it by being charming.  We learned so much more about each other. I learned that after being married for ten years he was not a father, and that’s why he wanted a young wife. His wife was going through early menopause and there was no chance of her conceiving, but they were a childless, happy couple.

He told me that he was happy with his wife, and she knew that he wanted another. He wanted children and she couldn’t produce them. I was young enough to turn out five, six, or even ten children, given the right semen dosages. I didn’t quite understand why  he was looking at me as just a fertile accessory to be added to their family. I was pretty, smart, semi-educated, a bit overweight but who isn’t. What about what I wanted? My opinion was not sought. It was irrelevant. If I wanted to be his wife, this was the condition – agree to have as many children as he wanted. As long as he would take care of me and the children, I agreed.

With his parents’ approval – my aunt was reluctant at first, her husband was thrilled at the idea, (and his wife, his poor innocent wife, made a terrible scene at the contract signing and took a taxi to the airport heading back to the States ) - we were married at their country home on the Red Sea .

Accepting him and his situation was not easy. It propelled me into adulthood so quickly that before I knew it, we were heading back to his home and a life full of unknowns. I was scared beyond belief. Now I had to deal with his wife on her turf.

I had my insecurities and I’m sure she had hers. You make your own mistakes and the other parties make their mistakes, and you try not to harm anyone in the process. I know I harmed her, considering that I just married her husband. All he would say was, “Be patient, it will be okay”.

It was okay, for awhile, then reality set in. I had to share. Share a man who was like a father figure, with a woman who acted like she was my mother. She tolerated me, as you would a pesky pet. It couldn’t have been easy for her, but she showed no signs of discomfort in my presence. We never fought, and I’m sure she had some not so kind words to say about me to our husband in private.

In this quiet, emotionless, surreal household, my life became dull. Tears rained down my face on a daily basis. The pillows were drenched each morning I awoke to a day that was not my day to host our husband. In his place, stress, my  constant companion.  What did I get myself into?

Nearly 20 years has passed now, and I can tell you that the stressful times come and go. If there is no longer stress from one thing, eventually something new will come along to take its place. Our life is full of stressors. After all of these years, our marriage did not produce any children.

 I’m still married, still living in Atlanta, but on my own. The home that we all shared for twelve years was burned down, and we split up into two separate homes. His visits to me are for three days on and four days off. The arrangement is working, but the tension is very thick right now, because our husband is looking for wife number three.

He already has a peaceful loving home with two women who take care of his every need, what more does he want?

I pity the woman who agrees to take on this responsibility, because it is not easy and not all parties will be as welcoming as he. My question is why isn’t he satisfied with what he has?

If he could go outside and take our problems and throw them up in the air – he’d probably be better off catching our problems again, than taking on someone else’s.

If I’d considered the feelings of the first wife before accepting my role in this relationship, maybe, just maybe I would have declined the offer. Women need to look out for each other. When a man takes a second wife, there is all likelihood that he will also look for a third or fourth. It can be never ending.

This is my life. There is no wind, just rain.

Excerpted from “2, or 3, or 4, Why a man needs to marry more?” © by Latifahafital 2011