JEDDAH, 7 July — Many Saudi women interviewed by a local newspaper have described the decision by their husbands to take a second wife as unbearable. The experience was so shattering that some of them, unable to bear the shock and humiliation, tried to commit suicide.
Al-Bilad Arabic newspaper yesterday published the survey to highlight the sad plight of such women. Most women surveyed said it was too hard for them to imagine another woman standing between themselves and their husbands.
Umm Turki said she did not take it seriously when her husband told her about a second marriage. “I was shocked when he came home one day and simply told me that he had married another woman,” Umm Turki told Al-Bilad.
The news was too heavy for Umm Turki to bear that she spent the whole day hiding in a neighbor’s house. “When he failed to find me, he informed my relatives who forced me to return to him. They said they had no right to prevent him from staying with me until he divorced me. I went back with a broken heart,” Umm Turki said.
Umm Saud said she could reconcile herself to reality after having failed to persuade her husband to change his mind. She joined her husband’s marriage celebrations and even presented a gift to her “partner”. She thought it was the best way to win over her husband.
Unlike Umm Saud, Umm Sultan and Fatma were unable to face the new situation. According to Umm Sultan, her cousin was taking revenge by marrying Abu Sultan because their son, Sultan, had divorced her sister.
Learning that her husband was toying with the idea of a second marriage, Fatma took the extreme step of attempting suicide by swallowing a large quantity of sleeping pills. “This forced him to change his mind and drop the plan once and for all,” Fatma said.
Salma, on the other hand, said she taught her husband a lesson when he decided to bring another woman home. She took all the furniture and ran away to the dismay of her husband and his new bride. Umm Rawwan also decided to leave her husband when he took a second wife.
According to a recent study Saudi courts approve between 25 and 35 divorces a day, or up to 12,775 a year. The study, carried out by Muhammad Al-Saif of the sociology department of Riyadh’s King Saud University, said polygamy was responsible for up to 55 percent of the divorces.
