It sort of makes sense

I was speaking with an aquaintance recently and found out that he has two wives. One he married in the mid 90’s and his second wife he married recently. This concept is foreign to me and so I was keen to find out some of the thinking behind it. He is expected to treat them equally in all ways so they each have a separate house and he spends alternate days with each family. He has children to each wife as well. We discussed why he took a second wife and he said that things weren’t going well in his first marriage and while divorce was an option he felt this was not good for the children. Taking a second wife stopped him from forming relationships with other woman as an outlet for his unhappiness, which would have been against his Islamic teachings. He said his relationship with his first wife improved after he took his second wife and things work well for everyone. I appreciate this is his perspective and their may be differing views. He can have up to four wives and I think this allows more flexibility to keep within the laws of Islam. It makes sense. Doesn’t it?