What’s it like Being a Second Wife in Malaysia? 4 Sobering Realities About Polygamy
(CiliSos) – It’s also notable that among polygamous families, 65% of husbands recommend polygamy while 90% of their children (from both wives) do not.
[This article was originally written in BM. Click here to read it on Soscili]
Every once in a while, we’d hear news of some politician or celebrity taking on a second wife, such as recently-released from prison (and ex-Selangor Menteri Besar) Khir Toyo’s recent marriage to a government worker in Putrajaya despite being already married; or local actor Adi Putra remarrying without his wife’s knowledge.
Khir Toyo with (new) bride Christine Zanitrah. Image from The Star.
This practice of taking on another wife while still married to the first one is called polygamy, not to be confused with origami – which is the art of folding colored papers. Incidentally, polygamy is illegal for non-Muslims according to Federal law but is allowed for Muslim men under Sharia Law. We’ll go into some of the specifics later in this article.
We couldn’t find an English explanation that’s as funny.
While it may seem that getting another waifu for laifu is something left for the rich and famous, we were pretty surprised to find that this perception is dead wrong because…
1. Most men with more than one wife earn less than RM4k a month!
Some of ugaiz living on your own will know that making ends meet for yourself is hard enough, much less having two wives and who knows how many more children to feed.
But according to stats released by the Ministry of Women, Family, and Community Development’s Population Survey in 2004, the highest percentage of men in polygamous marriages are actually only earning between RM3,000 – 4,000 a month! Considering that the typical Malaysian household spends RM3,600 on necessities alone (2014 stats), the remainder may be barely enough to support a cat much less a wife.
