Assalamu aleykum wa rahmatullahi wa baraakatu, dear sisters!
In my post today, I wish to touch up the theme of polygyny in Islam. It is a very sensitive and difficult topic for me. As far as I am concerned, I had always feared that Allah will test me with this issue and this is exactly what happened. Even though I would always tell my husband that, if he would take on a second wife, I would no longer be able to live with him, I came to accept this situation for Allah and in the name of Allah, and to regard it as one of His trials, that I have to pass in order to strengthen my Faith.
After my husband’s second marriage, due to a series of particular circumstances, we all had to live in the same house. We had separate rooms and also separate days in which our husband would visit us. I reached a point where I would call my husband’s second wife as “my other other half”, considering that, most days, we would spend quite a lot of time together.
The days we spent together, „my other other half” and I were quite different, some easy and fun, others tense and hard. I a house with two homemakers, you can easily imagine things tend, at times, to get quite complicated.
The two of us, we even set up a schedule, with days and nights. The one who was scheduled during the day had to go to the market to buy products and to prepare lunch and dinner. The one who was scheduled during the night had to make breakfast.
The second wife was younger than me by 6 years and was, at that time, 20 years old. She was young and full of life. As for myself, I have decided that, because I was older and more experienced, I had to be wiser as well.
Whenever we were together, we would try to cheer each other up. I would try to give her advice about family life, so that our husband would not get mad because of her. I have accepted her and regarded her as my own sister, my own flesh and blood. She was part of my family.
Living all together in one house was a great trial for me. No day was similar to the previous one. Some days, there was a lot of tension and arguing. I tried as hard as I could to be patient and calm, as I was well aware that Allah is testing me. Some other days, however, I could also see the many advantages. One of them was that we often had fun together, we would laugh and joke around, and when one of us would argue with our husband, the other one would try to support her and stand by her. It was a sort of feminine solidarity between us.
Whenever I would notice that our husband was being unfair towards her, I would each time try and call him out on it and make him aware of his bad behavior. I would always try and do everything as best I could, so that Allah would be pleased and happy with my husband and that the second wife would not get mad or upset with him.
We were visited by many Muslim brothers, as my husband was a very sociable person. He would always tell everyone how well the second wife and I would get along. We even reached a point where other wives would visit us, to observe and learn from our way of relating and behaving with each other. The wives would tell us that their husbands would come to them and say they would also like two wives who would be as good friends with each other as we were.
I feel that many aspects of Muslim family life depend on the woman, on the way in which she chooses to behave and knows how to conduct herself at home. Of course, the husband also plays an important part. I also believe that wives should not live together, no matter how much the husbands wish to have them under the same roof. Because some relationships should be kept separate and no superimpose on others.
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