35,000 Brits sign up for dating site helping Muslim men find multiple wives
According to the site’s creator, 33-year-old Azad Chaiwala, secondwife.com promotes “fidelity, morality and old-fashioned values.”
“Users police each other and every picture is vetted for decency. We do not allow cleavage,” the East Midlands-based businessman explained.
“The modern-day version of looking for a second wife is disrespectful to women, and it is not using the Islamic teaching in a fair way. It ends up in a deteriorating relationship between the husband and first wife.”
Though secondwife.com caters exclusively to practicing Muslims, inspired by the site’s success, Chaiwala, who is of Pakistani origin, launched a similar service aimed at all faiths, called polygamy.com. Since the site went live early this year, 7,000 people have signed up.
However, not everyone is sold on the idea. Muslim MP Khalid Mahmood has dismissed the venture as “stupid.”
“It puts a person in huge peril because they are not allowed to claim, as a partner, on his estate. It is not acceptable and puts individuals very much at risk, it puts them at a huge disadvantage,” MP Perry Barr warned.
Though bigamy is illegal in the UK and carries a sentence of up to seven years, Chaiwala argues that Islam allows a man to have up to four wives.
“This is my wedding, I do not need to have a piece of paper. Is it illegal to have a mistress?” he said.
“People go to a nightclub and have a one-night stand and that’s the end of it. Men go with prostitutes; people look for swingers’ clubs.
“A man wants to get married to multiple partners in an honorable manner, he wants to share his love and resources – why do you have an issue with that?”