Advantages and disadvantages of polygamy

Here is a scenario: a forty year old male is married to a lovely girl in her late thirties who has tried forever to fall pregnant. She has had all kind of fertility treatment and nothing has worked. She has a best friend, also in her thirties, who is also a friend to the husband; all three are good friends. The wife asks her best friend to become the husband’s wife as she cannot conceive and desperately wants a baby. If the wife is prepared to share her husband and the husband agrees, and the country you are living in allows it, is it wrong to take a second wife? Women feel unfulfilled if they cannot bear children. They want the experience of motherhood. On the other hand, women are also selfish and do not want to share a man. Selfish may sound like a harsh word when you consider the parties are legally married, but the numbers are climbing and according to statistics there are more women than men. If a couple is prepared to bring a third person into the marriage and everything is by consent, is it wrong, uncivilized, illegal, or is it a situation only the parties involved can decide? Let’s use the above situation as an example.


Advantages

• According to the Holy Book of the Muslims, if the parties mentioned above are all in agreement and all parties are satisfied and the man accepts the children of the women he has married as his own, it is allowed. Remember, however, that God does not recommend it. God says man cannot be fair and so it is better for him to have only one partner, but if circumstances permit, as in the case above, it is allowed. The advantage here is that the woman now has a husband, shelter, protection, and love for her children who would otherwise have been destitute. She is now also protected by the sanctity of marriage.


Disadvantages

• People change their mind or they have problems between them and the first wife decides that she can no longer be in an arrangement where there is another mother for the child, and becomes jealous and wants to take the child with her even though she is not the biological mother. If she is a generous first wife, it can work. If she is not, it will be unfair to the child or children who will be split up with parents who are fighting over them. Having said this, however, it is all up to the parties involved and only they can decide what is good and right for them. Women don’t easily give up their children; it will be a feud to the end.


Polygamy can only work if the parties take their vows seriously and the husband is fair – hence the advice from God to not take more than one wife if you cannot be fair to both of them. It is common knowledge that many prophets had many wives and that during the Battle of Uhud a lot of men were killed in the battle and the women were left unprotected. The Holy Prophet Muhamad got the instruction from God to tell his followers that a man who could give a woman shelter and have her kids protected, would be allowed to marry more than one woman – and only up to four. Hopefully this dispels the notion that Muslims can just marry out of hand. They can marry another woman, yes, but with the following in mind – that while it is allowed it is not recommended.


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The best way to edit a novel

There is no one way to approach writing or editing a novel except to say that the more you write and read over what you’ve written as you go along the better the prose will be and the less you will have to edit later on. Your publisher has read your novel and throws a thick package containing 400 pages of words on your desk and says, ‘ready for editing’, and you have a huge task ahead. You have gone through the process of developing the plot and the characters, choosing a setting, choosing a first or third person point of view, structuring the story so that you have a beginning, a middle section and an end and now have to attend to the final bits you have to include or delete.


• To edit a novel once it is done, take a break from it for a week, work on something else, and come back to it with fresh eyes; sort of like cleaning the palette between wines so that one can better see and appreciate its contents. This will immediately tell the writer what is lacking, what needs to be better explained, and what he has to throw out no matter how delightful. Sometimes a writer has to kill off certain passages and sentences as it just does not add anything to the story and is there purely because the writer likes it. This is called killing off your darlings. The writer will also see instantly what works in the story and what does not. Getting the story in one reading also tells you whether the structure works and what should be cut out and what kept. Editing a novel does not just mean making corrections; sometimes huge blocks of text are added, moved or removed resulting in a restructuring of part of the story.

• Use a tracking device so that the editor can see in red what has to be amended, included, or removed.

• Ask a friend who loves books to read the draft and comment on what she thinks of the characters, the plot, the structure of the story – and ask her if she would change anything.

• Don’t edit when you are tired; you need a sharp brain to proofread and edit your work.


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Do not be a bystander when you see a crime commited against a child

When we speak of child abuse today it is mostly to do with cruelty to children by outsiders such as child molesters, pedophiles and perpetrators who indulge in criminal acts with minors. The parties don’t know each other and the acts are random. But what of the child who comes from a good and prestigious family who is the object of his father’s love? His father comes to his bed in the middle of the night. He is daddy’s boy. He has to obey his father because the preacher at the church tells him so. He is six years old, innocent. His father performs sexual acts with him. His mother knows but she is weak and does not protect him. She pretends that he is not doing anything wrong because he won’t hurt his own child. So she abandons his needs and rights, turns inward and says nothing. The child who both loves and hates his father is a prisoner. If he tells his mother, he fears that his father will beat him, so he keeps quiet and endures the abuse, building up hate. The mother pretends all is well and does not talk to the child when the father is not home. She is afraid to lose him and embarrassed that the news might leak out. Her husband and her standing in society come first, even if it is based on cruelty, immorality and deceit. What she has in fact done is something that a wild animal in the bush would not even do. She has abandoned her child and cannot see that she has contributed to the problem. She is too numb to know the hurt she has caused and the difference between right and wrong.



Innocent at five

Children are innocent and adults have to protect them. They are not born with sin and have a clean slate upon which the parents make the first impressions as role models for them. Today’s children are tomorrow’s leaders. We destroy the fabric of society and all that is good when we witness cruelty and keep silent. When you witness a grown man act inappropriately with a child it is your duty to do something about it. Don’t be a bystander. Don’t worry that you will lose a friend. Step forward. Say what you know and what you have witnessed. There are young children all over the world who are snatched and kidnapped and are used in all kinds of situations. They lose their innocence when they are barely out of diapers. They suffer at the hands of their own parents and there is no one to stand up for them. Don’t think that because they are your parents that they can’t do wrong. They are committing the biggest sin of betrayal – betraying the family, betraying God, and betraying the child. Don’t save a predator and abandon a child. The child has no one on his side except you.


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