Reason for only 1 husband for wife

[PureExistence1]

Salaam everyone, 

Here i am, muslim for 14 years and i find myself not only forgetting the answers to things i knew before, but also not being able to reason my way back to them...getting old is horrible:(

Anyway, it came up in convo the other day about why women are only allowed one husband...i know all (enough) of the answers for why men are allowed 4 wives given correct circumstances and treatment, however, i couldnt answer why women cant. 

I know there are jurisprudential reasons as well as irfani reasons.

Can someone please help me remember what the answers are?

I feel like an idiot -.-

Jzk

[Borntowitnesstruth]

The most important reason for which women is allowed only one husband is the parentage of a child. If woman were allowed to have more than one husband, she might have risk to bore a child which has numerous DNA in it. Thus, every husband who mated with the woman would claim the child for himself which could lead to conflict or no one would claim the child, in which case child would lose inheritance. Also, it would be difficult to determine the share of his property from the property of each father whose DNA he holds. So, there you see, there arises a conflict in it. Allah (عزّ وجلّ) does not want relations to be dubious and that is the reason, He (عزّ وجلّ) has kept things in the manner in which there remains no suspicion in the relation. There might be more reasons but this is the most notable one.

[Ashvazdanghe]

41 minutes ago, PureExistence1 said:

Anyway, it came up in convo the other day about why women are only allowed one husband...i know all (enough) of the answers for why men are allowed 4 wives given correct circumstances and treatment, however, i couldnt answer why women cant. 

I know there are jurisprudential reasons as well as irfani reasons.

Can someone please help me remember what the answers are?

Salam thanks to @SpIzo @SpIzo 

 

This example:

It is reported that once, about forty women came to Imam Ali (P) and asked him why Islam had allowed men to have several wives, but had not allowed women to have several husbands. They asked whether it was not a case of undue discrimination.

Imam Ali (P) ordered some cups of water to be brought in and gave one cup to each women. Then he ordered them to pour all the water into a big utensil, which was placed in the middle of the room. When the order had been carried out, he asked them to fill their cups again, but only with the water which they originally contained. The women said that it was not possible as the whole water had mixed. Imam Ali (P) said that if a woman had several husbands, they would naturally have sexual connections with her. If she became pregnant and gave birth to a child, it would not be possible to determine as to who was the father of that child.

http://www.najaf.org/english/book/21/11.htm

 

[PureExistence1]

Salaam again, 

Thanks to both the contributors to my question.

Islam is a religion for all time so surely it was known that a time would come when paternity and genetic tests could be given to prove who the father is.

As far as mixing of different mens DNA, im not a doctor or a geneticist, but to the best of my knowledge, a human baby can not have DNA from more than one father and the mother.

Are there any other reasons anybody knows of?

If not, its ok. I can email a sheikh to find out further.

Jzk

[Borntowitnesstruth]

4 hours ago, PureExistence1 said:

Salaam again, 

Thanks to both the contributors to my question.

Islam is a religion for all time so surely it was known that a time would come when paternity and genetic tests could be given to prove who the father is.

As far as mixing of different mens DNA, im not a doctor or a geneticist, but to the best of my knowledge, a human baby can not have DNA from more than one father and the mother.

Are there any other reasons anybody knows of?

If not, its ok. I can email a sheikh to find out further.

Jzk

There have been examples in modern age two where a person has multiple DNA. For that I would request you to watch YouTube videos on human chimera. I have myself seen a video where a woman had more than two DNAs. In most of the cases, where a child has two distinct DNAs from two different fathers, the true father according to science is determined by comparing the genetic markers of child with both fathers but it fails to tell the answer to question that since a child has two genetic markers due to two different DNAs how could it decide who the real father is. So, it still stands unclear.

Edited November 7, 2024 by Borntowitnesstruth

[root]

There are several reasons for this, some related to fiqh some to common sense
1. The question of parenthood
2. There are certain responsibilities the father of the child has during the 9 months of pregnancy. Hard when you don't know who the father is
3. Men already are aggressive by nature, you don't want to see the domestic violence and murderrate go up, which will happen
4. The way men get jealous is different than the way woman do
5. Untouchability of a woman, meaning her purity, has been valued through all cultures through all times and all nations. So much so that you would think it's the nature of mankind to value it. Men being pure is of course valued by God, but not so much by human nature. We care more about how he performs under pressure, can he provide, etc etc. 

[ireallywannaknow]

The obvious reason that comes to my mind is that the right of the husband is to have relations with his wife..if she had several husbands all demanding their respective rights at the same time that would be problematic. 

[Ilm-seeker]

12 hours ago, PureExistence1 said:

Salaam again, 

Thanks to both the contributors to my question.

Islam is a religion for all time so surely it was known that a time would come when paternity and genetic tests could be given to prove who the father is.

As far as mixing of different mens DNA, im not a doctor or a geneticist, but to the best of my knowledge, a human baby can not have DNA from more than one father and the mother.

Are there any other reasons anybody knows of?

The main purpose of marriage is creating a pure institution of family and generations. Allah created the physical attraction between men and women so that human continue to procreate. Nevertheless, marriage is solely for halalizing the attraction and building a pure legacy of children.

 

A man can marry multiple women because all women can only be impregnated by one distinct father. And of course, everyone knows who is the mother!

But if a woman had multiple husbands and she were to remain physically intimate with multiple husbands throughout her years, there would be confusion over paternity of the children born. You want to think that islam is for all ages so women could surely go through DNA tests to find who the father is. But you have to consider that since it's a religion for all times, there must be a standard law that is valid even in ancient times when there were no facilities of DNA test. So it's only logical that polygyny (multiple wives) is legal but polyandry (multiple husbands) isn't. 

[PureExistence1]

6 hours ago, Ilm-seeker said:

You want to think that islam is for all ages so women could surely go through DNA tests to find who the father is

Salaam, yes this is one of the points the opposing conversationist brought up to me.

To be honest, at my age, i dont even care about these types of "issues" anymore. Being close to 50, i have way more important things to be concerned about, but when this question came up in a convo with a non muslim, it bothered me that i couldnt recall the answers to this question so figured i would ask here. 

JazakAllahkheyr for contributing!