Muslim women’s lived experiences of polygyny and intersectional justice in Cape Town

Abstract

This study explores Muslim women’s experiences of polygyny in Cape Town, focusing on how they speak about love, faith, and choice. Drawing on in-depth, semi-structured interviews with four women (three who are currently in polygynous marriages and one counsellor who has worked closely with such families), the research offers an intimate qualitative account of how women navigate these unions. Existing studies of Muslim women in polygynous marriages fall along a spectrum. At one end, scholars such as Lamrabet, Abou-Bakr, and Barlas, as well as South African researchers like Shaikh, Hoel and Kajee, view polygyny as an expression of patriarchal inequality that limits women’s autonomy. At the other, studies led by Lawson et al., Profanter and Cate, Mkhize, Cieślewska, and Husain et al. show how women negotiate power, support one another, and sometimes find fulfilment and love within these marriages. My study does not aim to soften or excuse the unequal gender dynamics that exist in some polygynous marriages, but rather to analyse the complexity of how Muslim women exercise choice, make meaning and frame justice within their own lived experiences. Cutting across both areas of the spectrum are also Orientalist portrayals that treat Muslim women as passive or in need of rescue, and local patriarchal framings that portray women as weak. Conservative institutions like the Muslim Judicial Council and the social stigma that surrounds plural marriages often sustain these portrayals.