Multiple Marriages
It was and is not required of a man to love all his wives equally. I don’t contest the fact that a large pocket is essential for more wives and historically, that was the case. Those who had the means to afford more women would do so. Usually, no woman would wilfully marry a man who did not have the means to support her.
the same verse which “if you can’t do justice between them, then only one”…. There is another way, if the woman herself decides to let go of some of her rights, then the man need not treat his wife the same way he treats his other wives. This happened with a wife of Rasoolullah, when one wife decided to give her turn to aisha. I dont remember the names exactly, but I remember the story…
Please follow the link. Ghamidi sb has beautifully articulated the concept of polygamy in this piece of writing. This might help you. http://www.al-mawrid.org/index.php/articles/view/polygamy#_ftn1
I personally disagree with the majority opinion that a man can marry upto 4 wives even Without the consent of his previous wife. Main reason being that I remember Ghamidi sahib and others saying that the main purpose of getting married is that your children have a stane safe and healthy environment to be raised up in. Being a witness to the lives of my friends where their womanizer fathers oppressed their mothers by going after a younger girl as another wife has messed them up mentally and caused so much trauma for their mothers and themselves that all of them are not the same people anymore and the vast majority of them still seek therapy because of what their fathers did. This is CLEARLY “Haqtalafi” and hence what their fathers did was only because they were in authoritarian positions was Haram. Just think about it on the day of judgement what will Allah do when the wife complains to Allah that he broke my heart, betrayed me and caused me this whole trauma just so that he could satisfy his beastly desires based upon this opinion. When the Quran said if you cannot do justice then you should have only 1 wife I think this is what it meant to say. Having said that times were different back then a lot of men died in battle and the main purpose of polygamy was to take care of the left behind widows, fatherless children and orphans. Even today in some parts of the world, some women (perhaps are small minority) are okay with their husbands having multiple wives. Hence I think that the provisions of this verse only applies in the situation I mentioned in the second paragraph.