It is estimated that as many as 20,000 polygamous Muslim marriages exist in the UK. In a Channel 4 documentary this week, director Masood Khan will delve into the community of British Muslim polygamists to find out “what makes these people tick” and how a religious group is able to put its own practices above UK law.
Khan was drawn to the subject after hearing about women in Britain – mostly well-educated, third- or fourth-generation immigrants or Western converts – who were considering polygamy a “lifestyle choice”, embracing the idea of the part-time husband.
Khan talks about meeting one such career woman: “She was a gobby Northerner who had quite a senior job at the Home Office. She recently got divorced and said, ‘I don’t have time to have a bloke around all the time. I just want to see him maybe twice a week, so it works perfectly if he’s got another wife who can take care of all his cooking and cleaning.’”
In 2010, London Mayor Boris Johnson’s then 45-year-old ex-wife Allegra Mostyn-Owen married a Muslim man in secret. In an article for the Evening Standard she explained her approach to polygamy: “I realise that I am unlikely to conceive children [at my age] so we agreed that, so long as he chooses a good partner, then I am happy to live together in an extended family.”
But this intriguing application of Muslim teachings, based on a woman’s desire to maintain her independence and career without sacrificing a personal home life completely, is not the norm. In most polygamous marriages the idea of the dominant male provider and his numerous subordinate spouses prevails.
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