Mission & Justice

Rachel Woodlock; 28/6/08

If ever a man flirts with the idea of marrying more than one wife, he should surely be dissuaded from the idea by watching a season of Big Love — a fictional television drama about the polygamous family of a fundamentalist Mormon man whose life is constantly troubled with jealous intrigue, betrayal and psychotic in-laws. I am writing tongue-in-cheek, but since embracing Islam I have become friends with about half-a-dozen different women who are co-wives (none of them with each other). Tellingly, all the relationships involved include at least one convert, which means that polygamy is not merely the preserve of refugees who can barely speak a lick of English and who know nothing of our culture or way of life. Whether or not we like to admit it, polygamy is part of the diverse fabric of family life in 21st century Australia, although admittedly a minority practice. This is partly because although Australian multiculturalism requires assent to the law of the land, many groups (for example, Jews, Catholics, Baha’is and Aborigines) also operate under community-imposed religio-legal codes, particularly when it comes to family relationships.

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Mary Jordan; 28/6/08

Helen Rawlins climbed into her Toyota Land Cruiser at 7.30am, off to rescue another woman. As the baking bustle of the Pakistani countryside whizzed by, the British diplomat knew a tense confrontation awaited. Lately, she had been making a trip such as this once a week — to help British women of Pakistani descent lured to this country and forced, sometimes at gunpoint, into marriage. The British Government views forced marriages as a human rights abuse, far different from arranged marriages to which bride and groom consent. It is Ms Rawlins’ job to stop them. On this June day, the victim was 21. After exchanging clandestine text messages and calls, Ms Rawlins was on her way to rescue her.

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Ean Higgins; 28/6/08

At 19 and the daughter of a traditional Middle Eastern immigrant family, Mira says polygamy should be legalised for Muslims because she believes it is sometimes the best way of dealing with marital problems that in a Christian society would lead to divorce. But Mira’s experience as the daughter of a father with two wives has been horrendous: she says the arrangement has split the family. Neither of her parents plans to seek a divorce despite the second marriage tearing her father away from her mother, Mira and her five siblings, she says.

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Irfan Yusuf; 27/6/08

Listeners to Triple J’s Hack program learned this week that some Muslims want Muslim men to have the right to marry more than one wife. Indeed some Muslim men, including Keysar Trad, president of the Islamic Friendship Association (whose members, I suspect, share the same surname and hold dinner meetings each night in the same home), have made serious attempts at it. Really? Australians committing the offence of bigamy? Muslims wanting to introduce sharia into Australia? Is the dream of Camden’s fundamentalist mayoral candidate (and comedic character on SBS’s new talk show Salam Cafe) Uncle Sam coming true? Then again, we are talking about Muslims. Even in Australia, the thinking goes, some traces of their weird Middle Eastern faith and culture must exist. And, as always, some of our media tend to jump on the pronouncements of self-styled Muslim “leaders” for clues about the secrets this allegedly non-integrating fifth-column is hiding from the rest of us.

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Abeer Mishkhas; 26/6/08

A father brutally beats his 17-year-old daughter with a piece of wood. She is taken to a hospital where she subsequently dies. The reason? She got in touch with her mother who was divorced from the girl’s father. Thus ended the story carried in Al-Watan newspaper. The tragedy, however, opens the door onto something bigger and much worse — the trend to violence in Saudi society. And not just violence but violence against close family members. This case is not the first of its kind. Many of us remember another well-publicized case, that of Ghossoun, a 9-year-old girl who was tortured by her father and stepmother. She too finally died in a hospital. There are of course other cases that make it into the newspapers from time to time — victims may be daughter, wives or children. There is a common thread running through all of them and that thread is violent and uncontrolled behavior.

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Michael Pelly; 26/6/08

Even though polygamy is banned under Australia’s marriage laws, there is nothing to stop polygamists from going to the Family Court to settle their disputes. Marriage is defined as “the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others”, but the Family Law Act says a polygamous union “entered into in a place outside Australia, shall be deemed to be a marriage”. Although a Family Court spokeswoman said the court had never heard a case involving polygamy, a leading family law solicitor said he was aware of one man who had come from Ethiopia with three wives. Ian Kennedy, head of the Law Council of Australia’s family law section and a senior partner at Kennedy Wisewoulds, said Muslims who “took another wife” in Australia - without making those unions official - were now covered because of changes to the Family Law Act.

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25/6/08

Members of Sydney’s Islamic community believe polygamous marriages should be legalised to protect the rights of women. Sheikh Khalil Chami, of the Islamic Welfare Centre in Lakemba, said polygamous marriages existed in Australia and should be recognised. “Not an open door, but in a way everyone will have control,” he told Triple J’s Hack program. “It’s a bit hard, very difficult, but unless we face it, how (do) we overcome it?” Sheikh Chami said he was asked almost weekly to conduct polygamous religious ceremonies. While he declined, he said, other sheikhs, many of whom did not have qualifications, performed them.

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Patrick Seale; 19/6/08

In July 8, 2006, a marriage was celebrated in France between two young Muslims, an engineer in his early 30s and a student nurse 10 years younger. She had assured him she was a virgin, a condition he had insisted on for the marriage to take place. When he discovered on their wedding night that she was not what she claimed to be, he stormed out of the bedroom while their wedding party was still in progress, and returned his wife to her parents’ house. He then went to court, seeking an annulment. He did so under Article 180 of France’s Napoleonic civil code, according to which a marriage can be nullified once it is demonstrated that there was an error in the “essential qualities” of one of the parties. The law, however, does not define what these “essential qualities” are. The husband maintained that virginity was one of them.

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Arjuwan Lakkdawala; 15/6/08

The problems of bad marriages and unemployment call for unconventional solutions. And a number of divorced women are seeking unemployed men as husbands. It is a perfectly legal marriage contract with the exception that the woman retains the right to ask for divorce at any point in the marriage. Prior to the marriage, the future wife-employer states the marriage conditions and how much the monthly salary for the husband-to-be-employed will be. This may sound funny, but to men and women who opt for this kind of solution to their individual problems, it is a very serious matter. Raghda, a divorcee who recently remarried or hired her husband, says that it is a perfect solution for her.

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12/6/08

An Italian bishop has informed a paraplegic young man that he cannot marry in the Church because he is impotent even though his fiancee is fully aware of his disability. AFP reports that Salvatore de Ciuco, spokesman for Bishop Lorenzo Chiarinelli of Viterbo in central Italy, told SkyTG24 television that “no bishop, no priest can celebrate a wedding when he knows of admitted impotence as it is a motive for annulment” of the marriage. The 26 year old groom, who took part in a civil marriage ceremony on Saturday in Viterbo, has been paraplegic since he was involved in a car accident. The curate of the parish who was banned from marrying the couple was present at the ceremony.

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