ST. GEORGE – Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff told a crowd of approximately 300 during a town hall meeting at the Dixie Center on Thursday that the state does not have plans to follow Texas’ lead by conducting a raid of polygamist communities.

“We assure you we are not going to plan a raid to end polygamy. We don’t believe that is the answer,” Shurtleff said at the fourth annual town hall meeting to discuss issues within polygamist communities.

The meeting included a panel discussion including Shurtleff, Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard, Centennial Park resident Don Timpson, Utah Safety Net Coordinator Paul Murphy, and David Lujan, an Arizona state representative.

Members of different polygamist groups, friends and former polygamists, as well as members of the general public, attended the meeting.

Shurtleff said both he and Goddard work to investigate individual problems when it comes to child abuse and underage marriages.

“When we have individual problems, we’ll continue to deal with them individually,” he said. “If victims fear government more than they fear their leaders, they will never come forward.”

When asked by Shurtleff how many attendees had relatives who lived within the Yearning for Zion compound in El Dorado, Texas, many hands filled the air.

Many also raised their hands when asked if they would like to gain custody of their under-age relatives taken away after Texas officials raided the compound and placed hundreds in foster care.

Shurtleff also said polygamy is not protected under the First Amendment of the Constitution, and is against the law.

However, the state does not have the resources to go after offenders, he said. People could be charged with polygamy if they are being charged with other offenses and if proof exists, Shurtleff said.

Attendees had the opportunity to ask the panel questions or to have the moderator read a question for them.

Questions varied from asking if polygamist families could legally act as a foster home to why Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Shurtleff have endorsed a federal task force investigation into select polygamist communities.

Polygamist families can act as adoptive families, Shurtleff said. He also said the task force would be used to investigate federal crimes like tax evasion, welfare fraud and using child labor within the FLDS community.

A “credible source” alerted Shurtleff of such possible offenses when Warren Jeffs was the community’s leader, he said.

Timpson also outlined several actions he said would benefit polygamist communities.

He said the state should consider revising its laws against the practice.

“We know fundamentalist Mormons are not going to give up the practice of plural marriage,” he said. “What this country needs more of is marriage. Not less.”

Timpson also said every child should be guaranteed a quality education, and that states should be “more active” in overseeing home-schooled programs and schools within polygamist societies.

He also urged those practicing polygamy to stop isolating themselves and educate their children until they reach 18.

Mary Allred was one of the hundreds who attended the town hall meeting.

She said many people within polygamist communities are misunderstood.

“A good percentage of people I have met (who practice polygamy) have high integrity and moral standards,” she said.

Allred said she would like the general society to remember polygamists are people, too, and should be treated with respect.

A SO-CALLED polygamy club launched in August has been stirring some excitement recently.

Last month I made my way to Rawang, a town some 50 kilometres from KL city, to meet up with the club founder and some of her followers and family members. It was one of the most unusual interviews I have ever done.

When I arrived, I was taken aback to be greeted by dozens of people. It turns out Madam Hatijah Aam, 55, had gathered most of her husband’s 38 children to join us!

“To prove to you that we exist,” she laughed.

She is married to Ashaari Muhammad, who has had five wives. One wife has died, and one has been divorced.

His huge clan comprises 38 children, 200 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren. All of his children who are married, are in polygamous marriages. The club claims membership of 300.

The close-knit Ashaari family are based in Rawang, where they run a huge empire of grocery stores, restaurants, publishing companies, clinics and other businesses. Mdm Hatijah says they also have businesses elsewhere in the world such as Australia, Syria and Germany, generating millions of ringgit, which funds their activities.

This is not the first time her family has made headlines. Mr Ashaari was previously known for having led a deviant religious sect that was banned in 1994, due to teachings deemed contrary to the Quran. It was believed to have thousands of followers, including civil servants. The government has said it suspects the polygamy club could be a front for the revival of the religious sect, which Hatijah has denied.

Before the cult was banned, followers wore long flowing robes and turbans for the men, and black robes and face-veils for the women.

But when I met them, Hatijah, Noraziah and their children, wore colourful though modest clothes and headscarves. Their faces were not covered. The children laughed and joked with each other during the interview, like any other family.

ST PHOTO BY: HAZLIN HASSAN

Hatijah sounded persuasive enough, saying polygamy could help solve social ills such as prostitution and adultery. But when I pressed her on how a polygamist might be fair and just to all his wives, and how he is able to provide for all of them equally, she was unable to give solid answers. I said that while Ashaari might be able to provide all of them with comfortable lives due to his profitable businesses, other ordinary men earning meagre salaries, might not. Her answer was just that “God will provide.” But the club’s brochures do highlight a verse from the Quran that says that if a man fears he is unable to be fair and just to his wives, then he must only marry one.

The clan then proceeded to surprise me at the end of the interview by singing two songs extolling the virtues of polygamy, written by Ashaari himself. After that, some of them departed for Indonesia, where they are setting up a chapter. Although I left not altogether convinced that polygamy was for every man (or woman), they did seem earnest enough. And they certainly welcomed me with much warmth and generosity.

Good news, for all the single mamas in Kelantan, Malaysia a state representative wants local legislators and magistrates to marry you. According to AFP, the chairwoman of the state’s family and health committee thinks that dudes with good, stable jobs should up their “quota” for wives. “Quota” meaning the number of wives these stable dudes are cool with having.

The problem that requires polygamy as a solution is that there are too many unmarried, single mothers in Kelantan, and throughout Malaysia. As you likely know, Malaysia is a largely Muslim nation (55 percent of its 28 million residents). And the dude-portion of that 16 million-odd people is permitted to have multiple wives.

Life is not easy for a single mother, I’ve heard. Dating is a pain, making ends meet is a pain, providing a good masculine influence for both son and daughter is a pain. But the government doesn’t want just any old Muslim dudes to take these ladies off the market. They want guys who have solid government jobs and presumably some level of accountability.

Don’t marry young virgin girls; marry single mothers or widows instead. This was a suggestion made recently by a Kelantan state official to would-be polygamists.

But the idea drew flak from some critics, who said instead that more efforts should be made to reduce divorce rates and assist single mothers.

The issue of polygamy is being hotly debated now, with the controversial Kelantan official’s suggestion and the emergence of a Polygamy Club founded in August by the wife of a polygamist.

Hatijah Aam, 55, said she started the club with the aim of curbing social ills such as prostitution and adultery. It has 300 members.

“After sharing the same man for 30 years, we are like sisters,” Hatijah told The Straits Times. Sitting beside her, Noraziah Ibrahim, 52, the younger wife of Hatijah’s husband, smiled.

Noraziah met Hatijah’s husband after her own partner had died.

“She had children to feed. Can you imagine? She needed help,” said Hatijah.

The two are married to 72-year-old Ashaari Muhammad, patriarch of a clan spawned from five marriages — he has since divorced one wife, while another died in a car accident while on a pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca in 2003.

Of his 38 children, 19 sons and four daughters are also polygamists. Ashaari has 200 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.

“Some people think polygamy is bad, but it is actually a beautiful thing,” said Hatijah.

Most Malaysians remember Ashaari as having led an Islamic sect that was banned in 1994 because of his claims that he was able to absolve sins, and that an Islamic messiah from the east would appear ahead of a prophesied doomsday.

Ashaari suffered a stroke in 2003, and is now unable to speak. His third wife was not present at the interview as she was tending to him.

The family’s story is just one example of polygamous marriages in Malaysia.

Muslim men are allowed up to four wives under Islamic law. The practice was prevalent during Prophet Muhammad’s era to provide for the many widows and orphans, as a consequence of men dying in frequent wars.

Only 2.8 per cent of Muslim marriages here are polygamous.

Different states also have varying criteria for would-be polygamists.

Kuala Lumpur requires a written consent or views from existing wives. In Perak, a man’s promise to treat wives fairly is sufficient.

Hanafiah Hamzah, a 53-year-old television cameraman, said strangers look down on him for having more than one wife. “Society looks down on polygamists. People always think it is for the sex,” he told The Straits Times.

Hanafiah married his first wife, who is now 47, two decades ago. Seven years later, he married his second wife, now 36.

While both wives are cordial to each other, he admits it is not easy.

“You cannot be fair to both of them. If a wife or a child is sick, who do you go to?

“If my friends say they want to be polygamous, I always tell them, you better not. My first wife never used to complain, but now she gets frustrated easily. It is my mistake,” he said.

While some top leaders in the ruling Umno and the opposition PAS have more than one wife, most of them attend official functions accompanied by only one wife.

But this is not deterring Hatijah, who is branching out Polygamy Club to Indonesia.

Eldorado, Texas » A Texas judge will require the state to redact references to certain people and multiple marriages involving Raymond Merril Jessop from numerous documents it plans to use during his trial.

Attorneys spent two hours Tuesday in the courtroom, with no jury present, going through nearly 20 exhibits culled from a 10-inch high binder and deciding which would be admitted in full or part.

Defense attorney Mark Stevens argued that much of the content of the documents, mostly marriage records or dictations made by Warren S. Jeffs, leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, are extraneous, prejudicial and not relevant to the crime charged to Jessop because they refer to polygamy.

Jessop, 38, faces one count of sexual assault of a child. The state alleges he sexually assaulted a 16-year-old girl in 2004 to whom he was not legally married.

Prosecutor Eric Nichols told 51st Judge Barbara Walther the state plans to use the documents to show Jessop was not legally married to his alleged victim and that they both were in Texas at the time the claimed crime occurred.

Among the documents the defense wants kept out: Marriage records that show Jessop married several other women the same day he married the alleged victim.

Stevens said the defense had offered to stipulate to the fact that Jessop and the alleged victim were not legally married but Nichols said Tuesday he would not do that because it might limit the evidence he plans to use.

Walther said she would allow use of the alleged victim’s marriage record but did not immediately make a decision on the other records.

Among the documents the judge will admit is a dictation made by Jeffs that discusses the alleged victim being previously married to Raymond Jessop’s brother — a subject hinted at in the defense’s questioning of a DNA expert.

The woman, now 21, was apparently married to Jessop’s brother in November 2003 and then reassigned to Jessop in August 2004. She gave birth to a child in August 2005.

Other documents debated by the attorneys had titles such as “List of nursing and expectant mothers” and “Babies born at R17″ — a code name used by the FLDS for the Yearning For Zion Ranch, where the state alleges the sexual assault occurred.

Walther ruled in many instances that only portions of documents that reference Jessop and his alleged victim may be used, such as one dictation that describes her three-day labor in 2005 and another that talks about the naming of her child.

The description of the birth, Nichols said, is about the “very pregnancy that is the result of the sexual assault alleged in this case.”

Walther also approved use of a 2007 photograph that shows Jessop sitting at a kitchen table with one young woman while the alleged victim hovers in the background.

Stevens had objected to it as extraneous and prejudicial because the jury will view it as evidence of a polygamous relationship, but Nichols said it depicts a relationship between Jessop and the “very victim in this case.”

A proposal last week by Malaysia’s Islamic party argued that polygamy can be beneficial for women.

The conservative Islamic party has called for Muslim men in the country to marry single mothers instead of “young virgin girls,” said a state official. Al-Arabiya news channel quoted Wan Ubaidah, head of women, family and health affairs in a northern state, remarking that although Malaysian men usually prefer young and virgin girls as their additional wives, this new proposal would help single mothers and widows who are finding it hard to raise their kids.

Muslim men in Malaysia are allowed to marry up to four women under the approval of the Islamic courts but it’s not widespread in the country. The proponents of the practice say it helps disadvantaged women like single mothers and widows and discourage adultery and prostitution. But many women’s rights activists condemn it as an unequal and unjust practice against women.

The debate over polygamy has been going on in Malaysia for awhile now. In August, a “polygamy club,” was founded in the country to promote polygamous marriages. The aim is to help “single mothers, reformed prostitutes and women who feel they are past the marrying age” find the appropriate spouse to marry. The club claims to have 1000 members of which 700 are women.

A possible opening of a branch of the club in the world’s most populous Muslim nation, Indonesia, has provoked outrage among some religious leaders and women’s rights groups in that country. According to the Associated Press, analysts believe the number of men who prefer to marry more than one wife is rising in Indonesia,  and includes some religious leaders and political figures.

Islamic law allows for a man to marry up to four wives under the condition that he can provide for all four of them fairly and equally. The practice is especially common in traditional Arab countries like Saudi Arabia. But it’s prohibited in more secular predominantly Muslim countries such as Turkey, Tunisia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, and abhorred by many women’s rights activists.

A study of polygamy in Russia suggests we have a lot to learn about how to beat the recession.

A study of polygamy in Russia might not seem an obvious place to look for insights into how the financial crisis might play out in suburban Kent or rural Yorkshire. But Caroline Humphrey, Sigrid Rausing professor of collaborative anthropology at Cambridge University, says central Asia and Russia have much to teach us.

“In the 1990s, Russia and central Asia experienced huge economic change: what a bank was, how your career was going, what you could expect from life, everything changed overnight,” she explains. “And of course it had a huge impact on people’s lives, from family life to politics, and polygamy is part of that whole scene. So far, we haven’t had such dramatic change in the west, but you never know.”

Humphrey specialises in the anthropology of communities on the edges of the former Soviet Union, and has spent much of her career studying the Buyrat people who live north of the Mongolian border in Siberia. Humphrey says that anthropologists slowly build a deep knowledge and understanding of a place and culture, but nevertheless, her discovery that there is a polygamy lobby was a surprise.

“Friends of mine in Siberia told me that their friends were lobbying parliament to legalise polygamy,” she says. “I always knew that there were men who like the idea of polygamy, but what I found fascinating was that women were also in support.”

So is the recession going to turn the good burghers of Tunbridge Wells into polygamists? It’s unlikely. But it remains the case that the reasons why men – and, even more interestingly, women – are advocating polygamy in Russia and Mongolia are as much about economics as they are about sex. The critical issue is demography. The Russian population is falling by 3% a year – and there are 9 million fewer men than women. Nationalists, such as the eccentric leader of the Liberal Democratic party, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, claim that introducing polygamy will provide husbands for “10 million lonely women” and fill Mother Russia’s cradles.

Elsewhere, in the former Islamic regions of Russia, men argue that polygamous marriage is traditional and will encourage men to take greater responsibility – thereby alleviating poverty and improving “moral” education.

Improbably, for both groups, this is polygamy as a solution to contemporary social ills – and, according to Humphrey, is appearing outside Islamic regions. In rural areas the “man shortage”, exacerbated by war, alcoholism and mass economic migration, is even more serious. But when it comes to polygamy, rural women have a quite different agenda from their nationalist male counterparts.

“A lot of women live on what were collective farms, which are often deep in the forest and miles away from the nearest town,” Humphrey says. “You live very close to nature, and life can be very hard – your heating is entirely through log stoves, there’s no running water and inside sanitation is rare. If you are lucky enough to keep animals, you must care for and butcher them yourself. So if you are looking after children as well, life can be near impossible for a woman on her own.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly then, Humphrey’s investigations have uncovered women who believe that “half a good man is better than none at all”. “There are still some men around – they might be running things, with a job as an official, for example, or they might be doing an ordinary labouring job, but either way, there aren’t very many of them,” she says. “Women say that the legalisation of polygamy would be a godsend: it would give them rights to a man’s financial and physical support, legitimacy for their children, and rights to state benefits.”

Legalising polygamy has been repeatedly proposed and discussed in the Russian Duma, or parliament – and always turned down. For the urbanites of Moscow and St Petersburg it is a step too far.

In Mongolia, too, the legalisation of polygamous marriage is anathema. Yet in Ulan Bator, the thrusting capital city, well-educated women are combining traditional and modern to create something that looks suspiciously like a form of polygamy.

Surprisingly, it starts with the dowry. Eschewing the traditional gifts (horses, cushions, clothes), successful Mongolian families are increasingly giving their daughters a good education in place of a dowry. In contrast, their brothers often have to leave school early to either manage the herds or run the family business.

“In Mongolian culture, the bride’s family are the senior family; and a bride should be clever. And they had 70 years of communism, so the idea that women should be well-educated is not new,” Humphrey explains. “Since Mongolia, in common with Russia, also has a problem with alcoholism, there is an imbalance between urban educated women and the number of men these educated women deem to be suitable husband-material.”

The solution is simple: they just don’t get married. Instead, they take what is known as a “secret lover” – usually a well-educated man who just happens to be married to someone else. Any children resulting from the union are brought up by their mother and the maternal family.

“It is completely accepted. These women are among the elite of Mongolian society – they might be a member of parliament or a director of a company and they are tremendously admired,” Humphrey says. “They would be horrified by the idea of polygamous marriage because they don’t want to risk their independence.”

So what does this mean for marital relations in Russia and central Asia? Humphrey says it’s unlikely that polygamous marriage will ever be legalised in Russia – but perhaps that doesn’t matter.

“An insufficiency of men, educated women who want to realise themselves, rural women who want to protect themselves, all these things are going to give rise to arrangements like polygyny,” says Humphrey, “whether it’s called that or not.”

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) – Malaysian legislators in the poor conservative Muslim northeastern state of Kelantan should marry single mothers to help care for their children, a state representative suggested.

The state’s family and health committee chairwoman Wan Ubaidah Omar said that legislators should be awarded prizes for increasing their “quota” of wives.

“What I mean by quota is adding to the number of wives,” Wan Ubaidah, a female legislator said, according to Thursday’s Star newspaper.

Polygamy is legal in Malaysia for Muslims, who account for 55 percent of the 28 million population.

According to the Star there are 16,500 single mothers under 60 years of age.

Battered and bruised by a protracted battle and numerous thwarted attempts to prosecute polygamists who live openly and in defiance of criminal law, British Columbia’s attorney general decided last week to turn to the Supreme Court of B.C. for an opinion on whether that law was constitutionally valid. In making the reference, Mike de Jong announced he would not appeal a ruling last month that quashed charges against two men.

The reference is a welcome development. British Columbia has been at the epicentre of the national debate over the polygamy prohibition, which seems to trample the religious beliefs of various groups that practise it. In Canada, this debate has focused on the right of a man to have multiple wives — no Canadian woman has stepped forward to assert her right to more than one husband and the most public display of polygamy centres on a compound at Bountiful B.C., established by a fundamentalist sect that broke away long ago from the Mormon church.

Last month a B.C. Supreme Court judge quashed charges against Bountiful leaders Winston Blackmore — who is said to have 19 wives — and James Oler. The judge found former attorney general Wally Oppal had overstepped his authority in shopping around for a prosecutor who would take the cases to court. Two previous special prosecutors personally selected by Oppal considered the charges and told him that while Sec. 293 is constitutionally valid, the most efficient test of the law would be to refer it to the province’s Court of Appeal. Oppal, facing repeated investigations by the RCMP at Bountiful, opted instead to appoint a third special prosecutor, who eventually agreed to take the charges to court. Both that prosecutor and the charges were dismissed by the judge last month.

The reference to the province’s supreme court is Mr. de Jong’s last, desperate resort, an uneasy compromise for a minister who has very few options left. There is a law on the books against multiple spouses and a vocal public growing increasingly cranky about scofflaws who openly flout it, amid allegations of sexual exploitation and a fear that young girls have been taken in marriage.

B.C. certainly is not alone in its discomfort, not the only jurisdiction to have some interest in the judicial opinion. Canada increasingly welcomes Muslim immigrants from the Middle East and Asia, and immigration authorities and officials with provincial social services face hard decisions over bids to bring in and support multiple wives. Like the Bountiful believers, these families are ready to fight to defend their marital practices under the banner of religious freedom. Federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson, declaring polygamy fundamentally out of step with the values of modern Canadian society, quickly announced federal lawyers will join in the defence of the polygamy law.

Mr. de Jong chose to send the polygamy reference to the B.C. Supreme Court, rather than to the appeal court, so his government could fully explain its position, presenting evidence and witnesses — putting a face to the practice, he said. But the court, should it agree to hear this reference, should not be drawn into a surrogate trial of Bountiful’s men. Canada needs a clear, dispassionate arbitration of a law written long ago and now at odds with a Charter protection for religious freedom in a diverse, pluralistic society.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition October 26, 2009 A14

Stories about polygamy tend to surge and ebb in the media, but they never fail to intrigue people. Recently in South Africa, a Zulu man married four women–all at once–making the most popular story on the BBC news website. In the video, a male wedding guest gives a thumbs-up to the marriage(s), claiming that monogamous marriages across the world are breaking down as a result of adultery.

Later, the narrator serves up a classic: with all those wives, what man will have time to cheat? So, yes, it seems to be all about sex and keeping the man carnally satiated so he does not go astray. But what do the wives have to say?

From the wives’ perspective, there is Hatijah Aam, founder of the Ikhwan Polygamy Club in Malaysia. Running what sounds like a matchmaking service, Hatijah herself had introduced her husband to a future co-wife, a mother of seven. The club has been successful at marrying men and women from neighboring Thailand and Indonesia, and even as far as Australia. The virtues of polygamy, according to Hatijah, echo the reasoning in religious texts I’ve become so accustomed to: it helps single mothers, “old maids”, and former sex workers (a new addition!) out of what is ostensibly abject misery.

Looking at the social context in Malaysia, it’s understandable how polygamous relationships can thrive: women are chronically at an economic disadvantage, a female-initiated divorce is a difficult, cumbersome process, and if it is successful, women shoulder the stigma and burden of being fair game to any Malay-Muslim man. Pinning the label “unwanted goods” on former sex workers, single mothers, and divorcees speaks volumes about the precarious status women have in society; women are not only defined by their marital (and sexual) status, but also seem to lack avenues though which to better their lives.

For a while I’ve been interested in what women in polygamous marriages have to say about their relationship with their husband, co-wives, and with their faith, particularly when feminist buzz words like “choice”, “rights”, and “consent” are used. Take for instance this argument: in a monogamous marriage, a woman has the right to choose her spouse, and so, in principle, a woman should be able to exercise the right to request and choose an additional spouse for her husband if it means improving their marital situation. It will prove interesting when the role of rights and agency are raised in response to legislation against polygamy in numerous countries across the globe. There’s also an argument that “feminist” polygamy allows women “to have it all”: work hard and have a great arrangement with co-wives who will look after their kids (providing of course that the co-wives aren’t so career-minded).

Like polyamory and open marriages, polygamy is not common for obvious reasons, with jealousy being the main one. The few women who engage in polygamous marriages will find their rights protected (in some countries), but deeper psychological and sociological questions remain. How do their choices impact all other women? Will a concept of polygamy that is truly women-centric subvert a system in which some women see sharing a husband the only way out of economic or social hardship? Will every wife have a happy sex life?

Tightening conditions on such marriages may appear as posing restrictions on a woman’s choices and rights, but having clear parameters in place prevents men from marrying women for exploitative reasons often disguised as noble ones. In Indonesia, laws have become increasingly lax to accommodate men who wish to tie the knot multiple times, even if they lack the financial means (or the guts) to tell their first wives.

Polygamy, alongside housewifery and pornography, is just one of the few issues women continue to struggle to define as either feminist or not. And so a belief in ending oppression in all its many guises should be the compass of every feminist who finds herself lost. To end, I leave you with Hatijah Aam saying that polygamy should be something beautiful, rather than something disgusting. I say, fair enough–keeping in mind that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Alicia Izharuddin is a postgraduate student in Gender Studies at the School of Oriental African Studies in London with a keen interest in sexuality in Southeast Asia. She has written for a variety of media outlets on feminist and religious issues. http://www.altmuslimah.com/a/b/a/3341/