POPULATION-TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO: Polygamy For Better or For Worse?

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Wesley Gibbings

PORT OF SPAIN, Apr 21 1999 (IPS) - Harridath Langtoo claimed he did not know that bigamy was illegal in the country and that, in any event, he could not resist “attractive ladies”.

Instead of a possible jail sentence, the 32-year-old taxi driver was placed on a 2,000-dollar bond and told that he must keep on the right side of the law for the next three years or be thrown in prison.

He had married Esther in 1985 and Cindy in 1993. With Esther, he had four children while the marriage to Cindy lasted four days before she was accosted by an angry Esther. Langtoo was arrested and charged a year later.

After his court hearing last week, he left with Esther for their home in Central Trinidad. “I just don’t trust anybody, particularly other men, since (he) behaved the way he did,” Esther told reporters after the hearing.

Social workers here believe the Langtoo story is replicated in scores of households throughout the country. In many instances, multiple marriages are the acts of people like Langtoo but, in many cases, those involved cite religious justifications.

Islamic leader, Yasin Abu Bakr who led a bloody coup here in 1990, for example, is known to have two wives and there are other confirmed high profile cases of polygamy among the Muslim population.

Multiple marriages, for example, are sanctioned by the country’s leading Islamic bodies including the Trinidad Muslim League (TML) which has argued they should be permitted under marriage legislation.

A spokesman for the TML told IPS that if polygamy were legalised many problems would be addressed, including the prevalence of infidelity.

It is a heavenly act,” he said. “Are you going to commit adultery, or are you going with God’s law?”

He said Muslims currently get around the law by not attempting to legally register second and third marriages but that the laws should be brought in line with that reality.

Some outspoken women in his organisation have, however, criticised the practice and there are ongoing internal discussions on the issue within the community.

There was also recent debate over multiple marriages among adherents to the Orisha faith with Adeife Poole Omotade, president of the North American Zone of the International Orisha Congress stating that polygamy is an accepted practice among members of the faith.

The matter has gained currency here with ongoing state-led discussions on a revised marriage law which embraces all religious elements in the country.

Differing views among the Islamic community have made for some lively exchanges in the media within recent weeks.

Maulana Iqbal Hydal of the small Ahamadiyya Anjuman Muslim sect, for example, argues that there is no scriptural support for Islamic polygamy.

‘It stands to reason that any Muslim who takes a second or third or fourth wife, while his first wife is alive and before she reaches the age of 50, is in fact prostituting the sunnah (practice) of the Holy Prophet Muhammad and, by extension, the injunctions of the Holy Qur’an,” Hydal writes.

The Orisha leadership here is even more emphatic. “We made it quite clear, when we were settling our Marriage Bill issues here, that we will adhere to the law of one wife, one husband,” says Chief Iyalorisha, Molly Ahye.

“Right here in Trinidad we have liaisons and several deputies, but even if a man can mind more than one woman, and people say mind as if women are cattle, what about the emotional support?” she asks. “Can they give it to several women at the same time?”

It is highly unlikely polygamy will achieve official sanction in proposed revisions to the country’s Marriage Act, but the TML spokesman says he does not think it will bring to an end the age-old phenomenon of Muslim men with more than one wife.

“If we allow it, there won’t be men hiding around and doing what they are doing now,” he said.

Referring to the recent murder-suicide which took place at the Prime Minister’s residence that claimed two lives and left a young female assistant to the Prime Minister critically injured, he said: “Who knows? That may not have happened, if the relationship between these people was legally sanctioned.”

Army Lance Corporal Lance Caesar shot and killed prime ministerial household comptroller, Commander Noel Penco and injured Heather Wiltshire on Monday in what appeared to have been a love relationship between Caesar and Wiltshire gone sour. Caesar was a married man.

Meanwhile, in defending Langtoo, his attorney Atta Kujifi said there were two classes of people here – people with criminal intent and fools, like his client, without any criminal intent.