Gender equality and polygamy not compatible

The Age

MULTICULTURALISM has been a contentious doctrine in Australia, while also being a celebrated and mostly uncontentious fact. Those who complain most loudly about the use of the term typically live peaceably, and sometimes even amicably, alongside those whose religious beliefs and cultural backgrounds differ considerably from their own.

To that extent, the cultural diversity created in Australia by post-World War II migration and the dismantling of the White Australia Policy in the 1960s and '70s has created one of the world's most tolerant societies. But that diversity has in turn been dependent on a shared acceptance of the rule of law, and of fundamental values on which Australian law is based. Sometimes, however, an issue arises that draws attention to the fact that without at least that measure of agreement even the cultural diversity of which contemporary Australians are rightly proud would not be possible. That happened this week when several Muslim community leaders called for a change in Australia's family law, which has always forbidden polygamy.

Very few Australian Muslims practise polygamy, and few advocate a change in the law. But, as Joumanah El Matrah, manager of the Islamic Women's Welfare Council of Victoria and an opponent of polygamy, acknowledged this week, it can be surmised that the practice is probably increasing. If it wasn't, the question of its legal status wouldn't have been raised openly.

The mere fact that it has been raised will goad racist and sectarian bigots — though they will not identify themselves as such, preferring to proclaim instead that they are the defenders of central Australian values. And the instinctive racist response will probably be further inflamed by the fact, that, in so far as polygamy is becoming more evident in Australia, it seems to be so mainly in certain ethnic communities. In Melbourne, the estimated 20 polygamous families are mostly Somali refugees.

The declared advocates of a change in the law base their case on the anomalous situation of people who have arrived in Australia from societies in which plural marriage is accepted. In Muslim countries that allow polygamy, second and subsequent wives receive legal protection as spouses, and their children are recognised as children of the marriage. In Australia they have no spousal rights, although their children will be entitled to legal recognition of their paternity — "illegitimacy" is a concept long discarded.

The difficulty these families face cannot be denied, and no doubt adds to the trauma of trying to adjust to life as a refugee in a society very different from the one they were forced to flee. But acknowledging the plight of these families does not justify a change in the law.

As The Age has argued before, there are fundamental values that must be accepted by all who live in this society if the broader diversity is to be sustained. Among those core values is an acceptance of the civil equality of men and women, and that equality would not be possible if men were allowed to take more than one wife. (The same consideration would preclude a change in the law allowing women to take more than one husband, although no one has publicly argued for polyandry.)

As Ms El Matrah noted, women in polygamous marriages suffer emotionally and psychologically, and in practice their property rights and capacity to earn a livelihood are compromised. It might be argued that in some other societies legal polygamy serves to protect these things, but that is not the way it could be expected to function in Australia in 2008. If the law were amended to regularise the status of the very few refugee families affected, how might it be exploited by others who do not come into this category? As Sherene Hassan, a spokeswoman for the Islamic Council of Victoria, has said: "Fourteen hundred years ago it was altruism. These days the motivation behind polygamy is probably less honourable."

It is not only Western societies such as Australia that have taken this view of polygamy. Not all Muslim-majority states allow the practice, nor is there any widespread demand for it within Australia's diverse Muslim community. The advocates of polygamy are few, and have spoken on their own behalf, not with the authority of representative community organisations or the Australian National Council of Imams. They are entitled to their view, but not to the expectation that Australia's law on this matter should change.