Islam The Journey - In Introduction to Islam

The selection of a suitable marriage partner should be based on faith
and character, rather than the fading qualities of beauty and wealth,
and parents and the wider society play a crucial role in helping young
people find the right partner, but nobody must be forced to marry
someone they cannot love. As incompatibilities do not always
become apparent until after some time, Isl\m permits divorce after
all efforts of reconciliation have failed.
With certain quite strict conditions, it also permits a man to marry
more than one woman – limiting the total number of wives he may
have to four – so as to protect a wife from being abandoned in favour
of another. The moral outrage at this by modern secularists is
hypocritical, as they do not at all limit the number of side-step
partners a person may have outside marriage, but do not afford any
of them proper rights as a partner.
Isl\m insists that where a man has more than one wife, he must treat
them financially and with regard to the time he spends with and the
care he gives each of them equally, emphasising that this is an almost
impossible task. No woman should simply be used for the sexual
gratification of a man without any obligation for her upkeep and
continuing welfare. Whilst there is a conditional acceptance of
polygamy in Isl\m, a woman may not have more than one husband,
as this would make it extremely difficult for a child to know who his
or her father is.
Unlike feminism, which claims to improve the situation of women by
forcing them to compete with men, Isl\m holds both men and
women in equal esteem and emphasises their equal worth before
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