'Liberals' who extol monogamy as the standard of civilised norm and spurn polygyny in Islam as "adultery ex-Islam" or a "throwback to Stone Age thinking and morality" ( Await Islamic family law changes with bated breath by Manjit Bhatia) reflect moral and cultural relativism than objectivity in discourse.

What is so civilised when a serial 'monogamist' marries and divorces and remarries — two or three wives — compared with a polygamist who marries two or three at one time and for all time?

When reader Uthman said that "since only one percent of Muslim men engage in polygny thus it's not an issue" ( Polygyny is halal ), Manjit takes the moral high horse to criticise "that's still one percent too many".

I agree with Uthman's general point that polygyny could not no more make the faithful among men to become unfaithful as monogamy could not for the unfaithful among men to be faithful to their wives. What has Manjit to say about the hypocrisy of those (certainly more than one percent) who tolerate the restraint of monogamy by having mistresses or girl friends on the side?

Whether one is Muslim or non-Muslim, western or Asian, human nature is fairly constant. Men's natural proclivity to be (in Manjit's words) "lascivious" with more than one woman is nature's way of ensuring that life is bountiful and never ends. Nature profits from the restless insatiability of male sexual appetite. Different genetic combinations yield the best possible results of conception. Manjit should read up on the latest in studies on evolutionary biology in his university.

The men's sexual role in relation to propagation is to emphasise on quantity , while women, it is quality . That is why women would never accept polygamy of men when it implies dilution of his resources among different females and offspring so that each get less. That is why the twain will never see eye to eye on this issue and it is quaint that we expect the compatible to marry for life.

Has Manjit ever wondered why, if it only takes one sperm to impregnate an egg, men are so prolific in producing millions in one ejaculation? Why this sheer wastage? Or women though born with something like 4,000 eggs each, only have in their lifetime 400 potentially effective ones (expelled from the ovary once a month) for conception before menopause sets in? Why does men's fertility last decades longer than women's which is delimited by menopause? Compare the sheer extravagance of the male with the selectivity of the female, and their difference in mating strategy becomes a sobering thought.

If one concedes the reality of 'lust', Anonymous Academic is right to say that what is unavoidable must be intelligently and practically managed ( Polygamy better than illicit affairs ).

The difference in a "monogamous" non-Muslim male's position is that while he has lust, he has no legal obligations or responsibilities towards his second, third or fourth mistresses and their children, while a Muslim husband has complete legal obligations and responsibilities towards his second, third, or fourth wife and their children. It is to do fairness between men and more than one woman and fairness between women inter se .

What is wrong with that? Islam is quite practical in attempting to address this problem of how to regulate men's lust with the view to get the best result without ensuing chaos or hypocrisy.

Though monogamy is Judeo Christian in tradition, it is not a universal norm and was originally perceived to primarily benefit women, who depended on marriage for economic support of themselves and their offspring, and whose position would therefore be severely prejudiced by a polygamous male, diluting his resources among several other females and their families.

But now that women are educated and economically independent, do they still need the premise of monogamy for protection when it may well become a bane to their existence?

Polygyny will terminate one of the cruelest outcome of monogamy as it is practised today — middle-aged and reasonably successful men divorcing their long-sacrificing, menopausal and non-recyclable first wives to start again with a nubile and a younger wife, just so to avert the charge of bigamy.

Provided that first wife consents, polygyny will establish a polygamous hierarchical pecking order that restores dignity respect and power to the aging first wife who could now lord over the second and third but who inevitably will lose all under the supposedly liberated system of monogamy/divorce.

It may solve the day-care dilemma for the educated career-minded wife who could devote full time to career when the less-inclined other wife shares out housekeeping and driving chores, lessens domestic isolation and boredom (when the husband is at work and not around) by recreating the old, pre-industrial, wonderful sociable world of women who viewed other women as collaborators and not competitors.

If non-Muslims do not want to give polygamy a chance, at least don't deride it (as practised and believed by different cultures and religions) as a "throwback to Stone Age".

It may well be a "throwfront" to the future when greater honesty and less hypocrisy prevail over the issue of sex, with a difference in terms of gender equality: the social and legal acceptance of a woman, as a man, taking more than one spouse.