Azhar Haidri (R) sits with relatives during his first wedding ceremony in Multan, Pakistan
A 23-year-old Pakistani man has married two women simultaneously as a solution to his dilemma of deciding whether to marry the woman he loves or go ahead with the marriage his family arranged.
Pakistani law allows polygamy based on the concept that Islam, the main religion in the country, allows up to four wives. But men who take multiple wives usually do so years apart.
Azhar Haidri initially refused to marry 28-year-old Humaira Qasim - the woman to whom he has been engaged since childhood - because he wanted to marry the woman with whom he had fallen in love, 21-year-old Rumana Aslam.
Azhar said he decided to marry the two women simultaneously after falling in love with both of them. “I don’t want to ruin my childhood fiancé while at the same time I want to get my teenage love,” he said.
Haidri, a practitioner in herbal medicines (or Hakeem in vernacular language), said both the weddings received the approval of the three families, the two brides’ and his own.
“Initially the three families especially the parents of the brides resisted to the idea citing social pressures, but after lengthy consultations they finally gave in after the two brides had agreed upon starting their married life with the same husband,” he said.
The brides said they initially agreed to the idea as a compromise, but later they came to “like it as the best solution to the given situation.” They said their plan is live “as sisters and friends like before.”
“Islam allows men to have four wives at a time, but with the condition of treating all of them equally,” says Maulana Hameedullah Khan, a noted scholar. He said “Islam also allows performing more than one weddings simultaneously.” He said “it is far better to have two, three or four wives, then to have dozens of illicit relations.”
http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2010/10/18/122686.html
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