Practice of Polygamy in modern India
While Hindus makes mockery of Muslims for having four wives each (which isn’t true) they are unaware of the fact that Hindu men are more polygamous than Muslims in India. Let’s have a look at the survey,
As per Government’s 1961 census, 5.8% of Hindus were polygamous compared to Muslim’s 5.7%. Polygamy among Buddhist men was 7.9%, Jains 6.7% and incidence of polygamy was highest among Adivasis with 15.25% of Adivasi practicing polygamy.
It is illegal for non-Muslims in India to have more than one wife. In spite of this, many Hindus have multiple wives. Official reports brought out in 1974, almost two decades after the prohibition of Hindu bigamy, highlighted the shocking fact that polygamy among Hindus was higher than among Muslims (Adivasis: 15 per cent, Hindus: 5.8 per cent, Jains: 6.7 per cent, Buddhists: 7.9 per cent, Muslims: 5.6 per cent). Figures for subsequent decades are not available. The difference may appear insignificant but in real terms, it is huge — as many as one crore Hindu men had more than one wife, as opposed to just 12 lakh Muslims. In fact, according to the 2011 Census, 66 lakh women are still in bigamous marriages.
The National Family Health Survey carried out in 2006 showed that 2.5% of Muslim men were polygamous compared to 1.7% of Hindu men and 2.1% of Christian men. The number of polygamous marriages has dropped significantly in both Hindus and Muslims. But this time the percentage of polygamy is higher among Muslims with a 0.8% gap between Hindus and Muslims. But this 0.8% gap is not a huge number. There is something worth noticing that Indian law permits Polygamy for Muslims while Hindu Marriage Act 1955 prohibits Hindu men to have more than one wife at a time, despite this prohibition 1.7% Hindus still practices polygamy. Imagine the rate of polygamy in Hindus if Indian law permits them to have more than one wife. Indian law permits polygamy for Muslims based on Sharia law and yet only 2.5% of men practices polygamy. 1961 and 1974 census are more important because they are the only two official census to look marriages on religious lines. Apart from this, in Goa a Hindu man can practice polygamy if his wife did not bore him a child.
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