Ahmadiyyat or The True Islam — Page 242
242 is a safeguard against an indiscriminate recourse to divorce and, on the other, permits divorce as a remedy in the last resort. Some Western governments and legislatures have recently framed laws to make divorce easier but these laws are likely to lead to an undesirable increase in the number of divorces, and thus to under- mine the foundations of family life by destroying the sanctity of marriage which is the soul of all domestic ties. The only appropriate remedy is provided by Islam and the only solution of the problems with which the West is faced in this connection is the adoption of that remedy. The West has not so far paid any serious attention to the doctrine of polygamy, but the day is not distant when it will have to consider it in all earnestness, for the claims of nature cannot be long defied with impunity. It is urged that polygamy is only a device for sensual indulgence. But even a casual consideration of the restrictions imposed by Islam on those who seek to take advantage of this concession would convince an unbi- ased mind that the institution of polygamy is by no means a device for indulgence. On the contrary, it is a heavy sacrifice which a man is called upon occasionally to make. Indulgence means the seeking of one’s desire. How can a man be accused of seeking his desire in marrying more wives than one and treating them with perfect equality in accordance with the laws of Islam? Islam enjoins that in such a case the treatment of one wife should in no respect be different from that which is accorded to the other. The husband may love one wife far more than he loves the other but he cannot give her a