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Hope this info will help others too…

Thanks.

I don’t know many Muslims for whom marriage systems operate outside a ‘cultural’ class context of some kind or other – whether rigidly codified or not. Though Islam is in theory meant to be class-less at the end of the day who is implementing the religion? ordinary people and they are hardly changing overnight – are they – their ancient ingrained cultural practices. Muslims in the Indian Subcontinent are a good example here – we share our culture with Hindus and though we may claim we have different religious systems, not surprisingly we share similar cultural beliefs, like karma for example, contained within our sanskritic language. Anyone who knows any Arab muslims say in the Gulf States, (of course stuff varies across these countries a lot anyway) and indian sub-continental islam – knows what i mean.

P.S. Re the lack of polygamous marriages amongst Bengalis – a little correction. This is very much class/status related. It is very rare among the so-called upper classes because it is considered a ‘low-class’ thing to do, it is the poorer sections of the populations that this is seen more frequently. Young men marry a girl, can’t support her, moves along, marries someone somewhere else. It fits the itinerant lifestyle and ensures the guy doesn’t have to worry about his old wife when he marries the new. In more established educated families, this is highly discouraged. I always think because the powerful Bengali matriarchs, will not tolerate their husbands doing this.

Perhaps something Arab women might want to think about!