Al-han is right that the correct term is polygyny and not polygamy. The right to have more than one spouse is not given to Muslim women, thus it is not polygamy that we are talking about.

It is unfortunate that some malaysiakini readers seem to think that it is somehow a fault of the woman, be it the existing wife or the subsequent wives. This line of argument has failed to consider the social conditioning of women and men of gender values attributed to males and females in the issue of family and polygyny.

The Arab society is very patriarchal even in the days when Islam prevailed in the early years. The Muslim do's and don'ts have an existing patriarchal cultural baggage and intelligent people should begin to appreciate this fact in this millennium surely.

As a religion which has a rational to transform society, Islam proposes that the practice of polyandry among the believing Arabs must stop at four. However for a number of Muslim men (regardless of whether they are in Barisan Nasional or PAS) in this country and the state legislators who allow the practice of polyandry (supposedly with strict rules), time has stood still.

While Islamic commerce moves on and new understanding and rules are enforced with the times, our Muslim men want time — and the four-wife quota — to stand still. Pretty selective isn't it?