The new regulations about marriage from outside the Kingdom state that a man, intending to take a second wife, must get an approval from his first wife in order to go ahead with his marriage from Morocco, but the same government decree bans Saudis from marrying women from Pakistan, Burma, Bangladesh and Chad.

I believe that asking for an approval from the first wife should settle the first case! While in the second case (Pakistan, Burma, Bangladesh and Chad), it is related more to those who got the Saudi nationality and became citizens according to 2005 rules. Many of those good citizens still believe that their wives should be brought from their ancestors' homelands. Some would cite economic, social and many hypothetical reasons. But the point is that people should think of the future of their community in Saudi Arabia rather than looking back to their previous homelands.

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The writer is the media director, King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences.

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