Here come the brides: Club in Malaysia wants to change perception of polygamy

RAWANG, Malaysia - When she was practising law, Kartini Maarof once went beyond the call of duty for her divorce client.

She arranged for Rohaya Mohamad, a mother of seven, to be married again - to Kartini's own husband.

The spouse they have shared for a decade is 43-year-old Ikramullah Ashaari, who has four wives and 17 children. His 72-year-old father has 38 offspring from five marriages, without ever having flouted Islam's prescribed limit of four wives at a time.

Polygamy is legal for Muslims in Malaysia, though not widespread. The Ashaari clan believes it should be. Last month it launched a "Polygamy Club" that claims the noble aim of helping single mothers, reformed prostitutes and women who feel they are past the marrying age.

"We want to change the way people perceive polygamy, so that it will be seen as something beautiful instead of something disgusting," said Hatijah Aam, the founder of the club. She is the fourth wife of Ikramullah's father, Ashaari Muhammad.

Polygamy may seem out of place in an Asian democracy proud of its skyscrapers, high-tech skills and go-getter economy. But it retains a foothold in this Muslim-majority country of 27 million where piety is deeply embedded and Muslims can be arrested for drinking alcohol or consorting with the opposite sex unless a couple is married.

The government also polices religious practice. Ashaari, the family patriarch, used to head an Islamic sect that was banned in 1994 as heretical because it projected Ashaari as an absolver of sinners.

Most of the Polygamy Club members belonged to the sect, and there's nothing illegal about how they live now, so long as they're Muslims. For the one-third of the population that isn't Muslim, polygamy is unlawful.

The practice used to be more common but has dwindled to an estimated two per cent of all Muslim marriages as women have become freer and careers have opened up for them.

The polygamists point out that the Prophet Muhammad is thought to have married about a dozen women in his lifetime, including widows in need of protection.

"Some people treat polygamy as a laughing matter because they do not fully comprehend it," says Ikramullah, a jovial businessman and son of his father's first wife. "But a community that practises it would know that it is not bizarre. In fact, you would be teased if you were a man with only one wife."

The club claims to number 300 husbands and 700 wives. It hopes to cultivate examples of happy households to counter women's rights activists who say some spouses and children suffer in polygamous marriages. Club members say polygamy deters adultery and would improve the marriage prospects of ex-prostitutes if more men were available to marry them.

But Shahrizat Abdul Jalil, the Muslim female minister in charge of family policy, says polygamy "is not a culture that is encouraged in our society."

Sisters in Islam, an advocacy group campaigning against polygamy, says it isn't good for women.

"If people choose to be monogamous, there are enough men for every woman," it said in a statement to The Associated Press.

One opponent of polygamy is a 42-year-old business executive who asked to be identified only as Sharifah. She said she threatened to divorce her husband of nearly 15 years after he told her last year that he had fallen in love with a divorced mother of three, felt she needed help, and wanted to marry her.