But the council does have the power to make constitutional changes. The proposal includes a condition that subsequent marriages can only be officially registered if there is written permission from the man's first wife. It follows legal changes in March lowering the minimum age for marriage to 16 from 17. The reaction to the latest proposal was mixed on the streets of the capital Ashgabat. Turkmenistan's main religion is Islam, although 70 years of Soviet communist atheism followed by strict religious controls under Niyazov have placed considerable limits on Islamic practice.
Some Islamic societies permit men to have four wives.
But not all were against the idea. A middle-aged woman called Lena added that the proposal, if approved, would give the first wife considerable influence over her husband. Turkmenistan is not the first place in the former Soviet Union to suggest allowing a man more than one wife. The leader of Russia's Moslem Ingushetia province signed a decree in July allowing men to have up to four wives. Russia's justice minister promptly dismissed the decree as unconstitutional.