Polygyny

Abstract

Polygyny is titled precisely to reflect the form of plural marriage practiced by Muslims: one husband with up to four wives, as described in Q. 4:3. Debra Majeed employs the term living polygyny to describe the experiences of those involved in such marriages: men with multiple wives, the first or subsequent wives, those married both civilly and religiously, those only religiously married in a nikāḥ (Islamic marriage contract) ceremony, publically recognized marriages, closeted polygynous marriages not publically recognized, and “back door” marriages in which at least one wife is unknown to the other(s). The participants discussed in this book presently live in or have been part of a polygynous marriage. Polygyny is a qualitative ethnography that utilizes womanist theoretical approaches through dialogical performance, an approach in which interview data are dialogues performed through “imaginary interplay” (p. 31) across participant responses. It also constructs a rich and comprehensive presentation of her findings in the form of the participants’ voices as well as triangulates data by using focus groups, surveys, and interviews. However, the methods require greater detail to specify how the surveys were used. Majeed’s paradigm is rooted in gender justice, which acknowledges the intersectionality of all social statuses held by women in these cases: religion, race, gender, marital status, motherhood, age, class, and ability. She asserts that Muslim womanism is not only a lens for seeing the world, but also a “way of knowing ...