Polyandry in Islam (woman having more than one husband at a time)

The question of polyandry is also a controversial issue. Some writers claim that this form of marriage was common in pre-Islamic Arabia at a particular stage and certain vestiges thereof were found at the rise of Islam.

This notion is usually connected with a theory of matrilineality leading, eventually, to patrilineality. An examination of the evidence adduced to support this theory and of the findings of other investigators would seem to lead to the conclusion that this form of marriage was neither universal in any society nor representative of any historical stage.

Polyandry is likely to prevail under such conditions as these: a very high sex ratio, lack of sexual jealousy, severe poverty, internalization of the conceptions of common property, benevolence with regard to sex, and insignificance of the economic output of women.

It is very unlikely that these conditions will obtain, in combination, long enough in a society to give rise to perpetual, institutionalized polyandry. Even if some of these conditions, such as poverty, prevail other conditions, e.g., sexual jealousy or acquisitiveness will most probably check the tendency toward total societal polyandry.

However, various kinds of laxity, sexual hospitality, and sex communism have existed in some societies for various reasons. But these are exceptions and do not take the form of institutionalized marriages and reciprocal commitments.¹

The extent of polyandry in pre-Islamic Arabia is therefore uncertain. Matrilineality had existed but it had no conclusively causal relation with polyandry. Female infanticide, poverty, and sexual laxity were known, but not to any degree demonstratively conducive to polyandry as an institutionalized form of marriage.

Conceptions of honor, pride, and shame, which are believed to have been responsible, at least partly, for female infanticide, would not ordinarily favor patterned polyandry.²

Yet this does not preclude occasional recourse thereto. There are accounts that it was practiced. In certain cases a woman would cohabit with a group of men whose number was under ten. When she gave birth she summoned all of them (no one could refuse to respond to her call) and told them the news. Then she herself would decide who the father of her child would be.³

This implies that the woman must have been powerful enough to express her choice and have men abide by her decision. If so, it is likely that not many women could have been in this favorable position. 

Further, the reports on these cases give the impression that it was not any man, but some particular men, who could have had this kind of intimacy with one woman, and that the reason for this kind of relationship was, perhaps, the quest for good breeding.⁴

In another variant of polyandry also known in pre-Islamic Arabia, the number of men involved was greater than that of the first variant and the relationship was characterized as prostitution.

When the woman in question gave birth physiognomists were called to determine the child’s lineage and the man named as father had to accept their decision. Women who were involved in this kind of relationship, we are told, lived in isolation and disrespect.

They were in the main slaves of non-Arab stock; it is contended that seldom would Arab women put themselves in this position. There are indications that slave owners used to force their slave girls to enter the practice and turn over their earnings to the masters.

At any rate, while this may have been a form of sexual behavior, it can hardly be designated as a pattern of marriage.⁵

References

6. Cf. Smith (1 ), pp. 122-39; Pitts, p. 71; Bernard, pp. 226-7; Westermarck (1), pp. 472 ff; (2), vol. 2, p. 387; Thomas, pp. 532 ff.; Jum'ah, pp. 14 s e q q .; WafI (3), pp. 66 s e q q .; Murdock, pp. 36-7.

7. See the references cited in the previous note; cf. al AlusI, vol. 3, pp. 43-4; Roberts, pp. 94-5; WafI (3), pp. 117-8.

8. See, for example, al AlusI, vol. 2, p. 4; WafI (3 ), p. 78; ‘Awwa, pp. .17-8.

9. It is generally believed that pre-Islamic Arabs, men and women, were possessed by the desire for good progeny. So much was this the case that a childless husband might ask his wife to cohabit with another man of some notable quality, e.g., bravery, nobility, etc., the hope that she would conceive. The offspring, if any, would regarded as belonging to the husband, not to the natural father. T was known as I s tib d a cohabitation. (See for example, Stern, p. 74; Wafi (3 ), p. 78; al AlusI, vol. 2, p. 4). If a married woman could consent to this kind of arrangement, the inducement might have been due to her feeling that she would be honored to cohabit with men of distinction, and more honored if she conceived and had the liberty to choose her child's father. Such women could not have been of the common type; if they were, nothing would have compelled the male partners to respond to their calls and abide by their arbitrary choice,

(cf. n. 12 in this chapter).

10. Cf. al AIGsI, vol. 2, pp. 4-5; Wafi (3 ), pp. 72-3, 78; Smith (1 ) , p. 286; al Qur'an, 24:33; 60-12; al Zamakhsharl, vol. 3, pp. 239- 40; vol. 4, p. 520.