Samantha Maiden: Polygamists married to a love of multiple welfare cheques

IT IS easy to dismiss the polygamy argument as a freak show but the reality is, it is happening in Australia — and it’s raising some issues for Centrelink, Samantha Maiden writes.

Samantha Maiden.

• MULTIPLE MUSLIM WIVES PAID SPOUSE BENEFITS

IT was Woody Allen, filmmaker and marriage enthusiast, who once quipped that being bisexual doubled your chances of a date on Saturday night.

Turns out that’s the big pitch of Muslim leader Keysar Trad on the case for polygamy in Australia too.

In his spare time he’s the spokesman for the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils but he’s been constantly outspoken — most recently at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas — about his wish for polygamy to be legal.

Polygamy, you see, could help unattached women in Australia find a man. He would just be quite busy.

Billing the idea of men having two or even four wives as a sexy feminist experiment, Trad argues it would be more respectful to make mistresses legit. In his polyamorous Shangri-La, the two wives might even be besties.

Keysar Trad is all for polygamy in Australia.

The reality has proven very different for vulnerable women at home and overseas.

Many have been left at the mercy of men divorcing them on a whim, leaving them destitute with no recourse to family law courts because the marriage wasn’t ‘real’.

Many Muslims are horrified Trad is so outspoken on the issue that has never been an everyday practice.

But are we a bunch of Western hypocrites, happy to enjoy our wives and our mistresses too, all the while looking down our secular noses at Islamic marriages?

Islam, Trad argues, hardly invented the idea of men having a bit on the side.

It just tried to codify it in a respectful way to make sure the women were treated with some sense of equality.

Trad’s great, big polyamory dream would include men having a responsibility to attend to not only the financial but also the “physical” needs of their wives, he says.

That would ensure more sexy times for women running up against the hard laws of arithmetic that mean all the good men are dead, gay or taken. The answer is polygamy!

Let me pause, briefly, while you drop your Vegemite toast on the floor at this concept.

For the record, having multiple wives is also not a mainstream Islamic practice.

Some estimates put it at about 5 per cent of Muslims in the world, and that includes countries where it is accepted.

It’s easy to dismiss the polygamy argument as a freak show put up in Australia by opponents of gay marriage.

But the reality is that it is happening in Australia and it’s not illegal under the Marriage Act unless someone tries to register it at Births, Deaths and Marriages.

And it’s raising some issues for Centrelink when people with interesting arrangements at home rock up asking for a welfare cheque.

Centrelink do not collect data on Islamic marriages and possible polygamy. Picture: Matt King/Getty Images

For example, if you were not going to recognise the domestic relationship, the argument goes you would have to pay the woman the sole parent pension, which is worth more money.

On the other hand, there are examples of women living in domestic partnerships with the same man and all the mums are getting family tax benefits.

Is that fair if they all live in the same home and have one electricity bill?

Just before he was toppled as prime minister, Tony Abbott was alarmed by what Centrelink officials were telling him about polyamorous relationships and wanted something to be done. But what?

For example, what’s to stop a group of enterprising single mums setting up a share house in Byron Bay and pooling costs?

Isn’t that the same?

Or is it only the same if the single mums are having sex with each other?

For years Centrelink has been cracking down on single mums moving in with their boyfriends and still claiming the sole parent pension.

Their response to the Islamic marriage caper is to take religion out of the equation and simply ask the question: is this a domestic partnership?

But they don’t collect data on it ­either — a decision slammed by Liberal MPs including Cory Bernardi, as reported in The Sunday Telegraph today, as political correctness gone mad.

There is a principle at stake here. Polygamy is supposed to be illegal.

Turns out it’s not illegal if you get married overseas in a country where polygamy is legal, and then come to Australia with your three wives. Or if you don’t bother to have a registered marriage but instead have an Islamic one

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Tell us your thoughts below