These women felt polygamy can be a happy and beneficial...

These women felt polygamy can be a happy and beneficial experience if the co-wives cooperate with each other.[^7] Polygamy in most African societies is such a respectable institution that some Protestant churches are becoming more tolerant of it.

A bishop of the Anglican Church in Kenya declared that, “Although monogamy may be ideal for the expression of love between husband and wife, the church should consider that in certain cultures polygyny is socially acceptable and that the belief that polygyny is contrary to Christianity is no longer tenable.”[^8] After a careful study of African polygamy, Reverend David Gitari of the Anglican Church has concluded that polygamy, as ideally practiced, is more Christian than divorce and remarriage as far as the abandoned wives and children are concerned.[^9] I personally know of some highly educated African wives who, despite having lived in the West for many years, do not have any objections against polygamy.

One of them, who lives in the U.S., solemnly exhorts her husband to get a second wife to help her in raising the kids. The problem of the unbalanced sex ratios becomes truly problematic at times of war. Native American Indian tribes used to suffer highly unbalanced sex ratios after wartime losses. Women in these tribes, who in fact enjoyed a fairly high status, accepted polygamy as the best protection against indulgence in indecent activities.

European settlers, without offering any other alternative, condemned this Indian polygamy as ‘uncivilised’.[^10] After the Second World War, there were 7,300,000 more women than men in Germany (3.3 million of them were widows). There were 100 men aged 20 to 30 for every 167 women in that age group.[^11] Many of these women needed a man not only as a companion but also as a provider for the household in a time of unprecedented misery and hardship.

The soldiers of the victorious Allied Armies exploited these women’s vulnerability. Many young girls and widows had liaisons with members of the occupying forces. Many American and British soldiers paid for their pleasures in cigarettes, chocolate, and bread. Children were overjoyed at the gifts these strangers brought.

A 10 year old boy on hearing of such gifts from other children wished from all his heart for an ‘Englishman’ for his mother so that she need not go hungry any longer.[^12] We have to ask our own conscience at this point: What is more dignifying to a woman?