Polygamy, aka as Bigamy, Means Slavery For Muslims, Not Marriage

I was at a wedding this weekend when it all became clear to me. Last week, I was listening to a BBC Radio 5 phone-in featuring Baroness Warsi, Conservative Shadow Minister for Community Cohesion and Social Action, who had stirred up a hornet’s nest of aggravation with her fellow Muslims by suggesting that some of her co-religionists were indulging in polygamy – the taking of more than one wife – and that our politicians were ignoring this because they were scared of offending Muslims. (There aren’t many reasons that I can think of for voting Conservative these days, but Ms Warsi is one of those.)

One particularly arrogant medievalist was trying to suggest that Muslims need not respect our host culture because some of it was a bit flawed. You know, chavs breeding at 13, drunken yobbos and laddettes puking in the street. Polygamy, known in England by its correct name “bigamy” and against the law – if you offend against it you will probably end up in prison if you’re a Christian – was good. Lots of women liked it. A deluded woman Muslim was also wheeled on to say she was a second, bigamous wife, and felt it was good for her.

While watching the wedding ceremony this weekend and seeing the couple staring into each other’s eyes swearing eternal love and devotion I thought what an awful farce it would be if the ceremony included a second wife. This would automatically create something completely different. Instead of two people entering into marriage freely and independently creating (more-or-less) equality of power, having a second wife simply would create a master-slave relationship, with the man’s role elevated to owner and controller, and forcing the two women to become competitors for his affection, money, and time.

Now this might make sense in some god-forsaken third world dump where the women and most of the men were ill educated and poverty stricken, but not in a sophisticated country like England. Many Muslim countries actively seek to stop women developing their mental potential.

Then there is the more general point. Why do Muslims come to this country if they despise the host culture, many aspects of which have been fought for over the centuries with much blood split in the process, and which won’t be conceded by the host citizenry, no matter how much some of our politicians try, with the admirable exception of Ms Warsi.

Muslims who admire our culture and want to be a part of it are most welcome to join us. This must entail dumping those parts of the Koran which conflict with our core values. Those who find it impossible to respect the host culture and refuse to change their alien ways should be asked, politely of course, to leave. Why on earth would they want to remain anyway in a system they despise?