Keysar Trad and his wife Hanifeh pictured at their home in Sydney. Picture: Renee Nowytarger
Trad had already lived through the experience of being the son of his father's second wife, who became part of the family after the first wife became too ill to look after their children. A childhood spent living with a mother and a stepmother was completely normal. "There was nothing out of the ordinary," Trad tells The Australian. "My mother and my stepmother were always best friends. They never argued. She looked at my mum like she was her sister."
Their extended family took shape in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli in the 1960s. "That society was very open-minded," Trad recalls. "Even though it was not the norm. I was not aware of any other family with that sort of relationship. But generally, I found people didn't care as long as the relationship was a peaceful one."
But Trad's mother warned him not to talk about the family arrangements, saying people really were not that open-minded.
Whether a second wife would work in the Trad household remains another issue. The Trads say they have discussed the idea only in principle. Trad's wife, Hanifeh, is not against the idea of having another woman in her husband's life. She says she has enough confidence in herself not to let it affect her ego. However, she's concerned of the effect it might have on her children and how they would be affected by the stigma.
"We don't know whether it would work for us. We have only intellectualised, we have never practised it," Trad says.
The family has been subjected to a barrage of criticism after Trad went against his mother's advice and commented publicly on polygamy this week. Trad supports a call by imam Sheik Khalil Chami, from the Islamic Welfare Centre in Lakemba, NSW for polygamous marriages to be legally recognised.
It follows the British Government's announcement in February of new guidelines that legally recognise polygamous marriages and allow men to claim social welfare for each spouse. While it remains illegal for a married man to marry another woman in Britain, polygamous marriages that take place in countries where the arrangement is legal will be legally recognised. The move came a year after the British Government admitted polygamous marriages were flourishing in Britain and that nearly 1000 men were living legally with multiple wives.
There are no official figures showing how many people live in polygamous relationships in Australia. But Chami says he's asked almost weekly to perform polygamous religious ceremonies.
Chami has refused, but he and Trad agree that officially recognising polygamous marriages would have help protect the rights of the women in these relationships.
Trad says women are left in a vulnerable financial position if the man dies. "If this woman has wilfully chosen to enter into this relationship and make a lifelong commitment to this person to be married, it shouldn't matter," he says.
"If it was a business and the business had four partners, we'd recognise that, but why don't we recognise it when it comes to consensual relationships among adults?"
In Australia it is illegal to enter into a polygamous marriage. But the federal government, like Britain, recognises relationships that have been legally recognised overseas, including polygamous marriages. This allows second wives and children to claim welfare and benefits.
But anyone like Trad considering a polygamous marriage within Australia has been warned off by federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland.
"Everyone should be on notice that the law in Australia is that marriage is between a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others," McClelland says. "It's based on the culture of our community and polygamous relationships are entirely inconsistent with that culture and indeed with the law."
Under Islamic or sharia law, multiple wives and children must be treated equally. If the father dies, then wives and children equally share his estate.
Australian Federation of Islamic Councils interim president Haset Sali says the Koran makes it clear the Islamic legal system can provide for more than one wife.
But that was written when many women suffered in unfortunate financial circumstances and the ratio of women to men was about three to one. Sali says the Koran also states the overriding principal that the man must be fair to each wife and treat them equally. "I don't know anyone who can be 100 per cent fair to both women," Sali says. "It might have been appropriate in ancient history, but I don't see it as something that works in the 21st century."
Polygamy is common in Indonesia, where most of the population is Muslim, but it remains a controversial lifestyle choice. A popular view in Indonesia is that polygamy can be an easy way out of an unhappy marriage or a means for a restless husband to satisfy wandering desires without the bother and financial penalty of divorce.
However, late last year the Indonesian courts upheld the right of a man to take another wife after a Jakarta businessman took his case to court. Despite his victory, Mohommad Insa was disappointed at limitations put on the practice, including the requirement that an existing spouse be informed of her husband's intention.
"In Islam there is no such regulation, such as needing the agreement of your wife, or that you can only do it if she's crippled," an indignant Insa said.
In the US, polygamy sects and practising polygamists have continual run-ins with the law. The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the best known of the various polygamist sects surviving in North America. It has been targeted by authorities since 2002, when one member, Tom Green, 37, was convicted of child rape. Green, who lived with five wives and 29 children in a Utah trailer camp, had impregnated his 13-year-old "spiritual wife".
Although the practice of polygamy was brought to Utah by the Mormons in 1847, the church outlawed taking multiple wives in 1890, whereupon some sects broke away, believing polygamy paves the way to heaven.
Although polygamy has been practised in clannish compounds since, Green's conviction was the first in a half century.
The leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Warren Jeffs, 51, was found guilty of rape charges in September last year, stemming from the marriage of a girl, 14, against her will to a cousin. Jeffs was convicted on two charges of acting as an accomplice to rape.
Jeffs, a self-proclaimed prophet whose followers believe he is descended from Jesus Christ, was arrested in August 2006 outside Las Vegas after being included on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list.
In April, US authorities removed 468 children from a polygamist sect at the ranch of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints near Eldorado, Texas, amid allegations of systemic sexual and physical abuse. A search was conducted after a girl, 16, called a local family violence shelter to report her husband, 50, had beaten and raped her.
Officials alleged the sect's girls were being groomed to have sex with middle-aged "spiritual husbands" as soon as they reached puberty and boys were indoctrinated to continue the cycle of abuse. However, in May the Texas Supreme Court ruled the removal of the children was unwarranted because they were not in immediate danger.
Former Utah journalist Andrea Moore-Emmett says there are 13 groups practising polygamy, which has been abandoned by the mainstream Mormon Church. Moore-Emmett says she fled Utah after publishing a book, God's Brothel, which detailed the abuse of women and children in fundamentalist communities. "Women are vessels to be worn out in childbirth and girls are having children at age 14, 15, 16," she has said.
Polygamy has even been embraced by popular culture, with leading US cable channel HBO producing a television drama series called Big Love, about a Viagra-popping polygamist and his three wives and families living in suburban America. The series, which screens in Australia on SBS, has upset many Mormons who claim it reinforces old stereotypes about the religion, which banned polygamy more than 100 years ago.
The central theme of Big Love revolves around the husband's attempts to deal with the conflicts, jealousy and financial strain that come with having three families living in three adjoining houses with a common back yard. Former polygamists are concerned the series trivialises the real problems polygamous families face.
Silma Ihram, an Anglo-Australian convert to Islam and one of the pioneers of Muslim education in Australia, believes it is time the issue of multiple partners is debated in Australia. Ihram says it is not just a Muslim issue. "Take away the Islamic tag because that is irrelevant," she says. "There are many people whose marriages are not registered and there are a large number of people having affairs." She says there are very few people who have polygamous marriages and believes most women are smart, educated, financially independent and don't want it.
Still, she believes the issue should be talked about openly. "Where are we going with the family structure? Where are we going on relationships? We need to ask the questions: How important is it to have a one-on-one relationship and is it acceptable to have more than partner?"
Trad says he talks about polygamy to help people appreciate the importance of protecting their marriage. "I talk about personal experiences when I came close to considering a second relationship to show people that we can all get through these thoughts and inclinations and that what is important is holding on to and saving our existing marriages, which should take priority over all other emotions," he says.
A successful Lebanese businessman in Tripoli, who does not wish to be named, says he was mindful of preserving his first marriage when he entered his second. The 30-year-old had married his childhood sweetheart and had several children when he fell in love with his second wife.
He said wanted to keep his first wife happy and not to penalise her in any way because she had done him no wrong. But taking the second wife proved expensive, exhausting and potentially fatal.
He now runs two businesses and works long hours to pay for the flats, cars and clothes both families require.
It leaves him little energy to provide equal time and love for two wives.
He is now dealing with the aftermath of a fire bomb attack on the apartment of his second wife, perpetrated, he suspects, by his extremely jealous first wife.
Natalie O'Brien is a senior writer with The Australian.
