Polygamy “Normal” in Tajikistan

Polygamy is becoming so widespread in Tajikistan that it is beginning to be seen as unexceptional. Some even believe the law should be changed to accommodate the practice.

The practice took off after the end of Soviet rule, when punishment would have been much tougher, and has been spurred by Tajikistan’s demographic imbalance. Many men were killed in the 1992-97 civil war, and the years since then have seen predominantly male migrant workers going off to Russia, some of them settling down there for good.

The Centre for Strategic Studies in Tajikistan recently conducted a survey which indicated that one in ten men had more than one wife

The practice is banned and punishable by law, but men will typically contract a civil, state-registered marriage with their first wife while any others will involve only the Muslim religious rite. That leaves second wives vulnerable as they are not married in the eyes of the law.

Often the decision to become a second wife is driven by economic need.

Dilbar, now 35, found herself barely able to sustain herself and her child after her husband died, despite doing two jobs. Friends introduced her to a man and she agreed to become his second wife.

“The fact is that in our time, in our society, it’s very difficult for a single woman with a child to survive on her own,” she said. “There’s nothing good about women becoming second wives, but they have to survive somehow and raise their children.”

Experts say polygamy is a way for wealthy men to show off their power and patronage. But analyst Zarina Odinashoeva has noticed a trend for less well-off husbands to take second wives as well.

“They have one wife who’s uneducated and who does the washing, serves him and all that; and another who is educated and has a job,” she said. “So he lives off the two of them.”
 

The audio programme, in Russian and Tajik, went out on national radio stations in Tajikistan, as part of IWPR project work funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.