Saudi group launches new push to encourage polygamy

Campaigning under the slogan “Prophet of Four”, a reference to the Islamic edict allowing men to marry up to four wives, the group calls for every Saudi man to take four wives so as to rid the country of so-called ‘spinsters’, a term referring to unmarried Saudi women over the age of 30. Launched at the start of Saudi Arabia’s ‘marriage season’, the campaign’s Facebook page has already garnered a few hundred supporters…

Saudi Arabia’s firm gender roles and norms have loosened a bit over the past few years, and more and more young Saudi women are well educated, financially independent and exposed to different ways of thinking about themselves, relationships and their roles in society. Saudi social analysts say this leads many young Saudi women to refuse the advances of men seeking to take a second, third or fourth wife. Some women seek out foreign men, in the hopes that they will not end up in a polygamous marriage.