Founder Azad Chaiwala, who is married, plans to get 2 more wives through service.
AB Wire
An Indian-origin entrepreneur in the United Kingdom, Azad Chaiwala, has founded a controversial dating website SecondWife.com, which encourages polygamy, and the service is already a hit based on the 35,000 members and counting it has.
Chaiwala insists that the service promotes fidelity, morality and old-fashioned family values, reported The Sun. The 33-year-old entrepreneur believes in his product so much that he plans to select his next two wives from the company.
The site has proved so successful among Muslim men that another site, this time for Westerners, has opened for business – and is especially popular with women.
In the UK it is illegal to have multiple wives – with bigamy carrying a maximum prison sentence of seven years. Polygamy is illegal in the United States too, but many news reports over the years have said that polygamy is still practiced in the country.
Chaiwala has also launched a dating service for all faiths, Polygamy.com, a website which carries the banner “Welcome to the world of polygamy” – which has attracted more than 7,000 members since it launched earlier this year.
Users are greeted by a picture of a beaming, multi-cultural family and the proclamation: “We want bigger, stronger families.”
Speaking to the Sunday Mercury, Chaiwala claimed polygamy across all religions is more popular than it has ever been.
Khalid Mahmood, the MP for Perry Barr who is Muslim himself, branded the venture “stupid” and warned that women entering a polygamous relationship are waving away financial rights usually attached to a marriage.
He told the newspaper: “It puts a person in huge peril because they are not allowed to claim, as a partner, on his estate. It is not acceptable and puts individuals very much at risk, it puts them at a huge disadvantage. They think they are doing the right thing, but it does put them at risk in terms of the financial situation.”
Mariam Khan, Councillor for Washwood Heat in Birmingham, said polygamy was originally allowed to provide help, shelter and support for women who had lost their husbands, perhaps through war. She said in the current climate it has been abused and has become disrespectful to women, reported The Sun.
She told the Sunday Mercury: “It is the women who suffer. The modern-day version of looking for a second wife is disrespectful to women, and it is not using the Islamic teaching in a fair way. It ends up in a deteriorating relationship between the husband and first wife.”
Chaiwala claims that he is not promoting a criminal act and says his religion allows a man to have up to four wives, as long as they are in agreement with the arrangement. He says he is providing a service which prevents loneliness among married women, reduces infidelity and stops the spread of sexually transmitted disease.