Although pre-Islamic Arabia was characterized by various forms of marriage and cohabitation, as we have shown, the Arabian family was of the extended type and, with a few exceptions, as in Makkah of later years, kinship considerations were the foundation of social life. When the immediate family is controlled by the extended family “the society is,” as David has put it, “familistic.” In such a society, “plural mating [in the form of either polygyny or concubinage] is very likely to occur, because in a kinship dominated society any means of enlarging the family contributes to one’s power and prestige.”
There can be little doubt that plural mating occurred in pre-Islamic Arabia if only because there was no institutionalized taboo against it. It was practiced among the various branches of the Semites, including even those who embraced Christianity. But it is not certain how common plural mating was. Some scholars tend to exaggerate its incidence among the pre-Islamic Arabs; others seem to infer the opposite. From a broad historical and comparative perspective, it seems that the custom was permitted and occasionally practiced. Under normal circumstances its “disadvantages” may well outweigh its “advantages,” and it would be unlikely,
therefore, to find it as a universal norm in any society. Moreover, in pre-Islamic Arabia, as in other societies, the wife and/or her kin resented plural mating. Cases are reported where it was stipulated or pledged that the prospective husband would take no partner other than his only wife. In fact, there are indications that this attitude continued in Islam and was endorsed by some of the major schools of law. If a husband takes a second wife, the first may justifiably refuse to be a co-wife and request a divorce. We may infer, then, that under normal conditions plural mating occurred, but was uncommon, resented, and protestable.
Polyandry
The question of polyandry is also a controversial issue. Some writers claim that this form of marriage was common in pre-Islamic Arabia at a particular stage and certain vestiges thereof were found at the rise of Islam. This notion is usually connected with a theory of matrilineality leading, eventually, to patrilineality. An examination of the evidence adduced to support this theory and of the findings of other investigators would seem to lead to the conclusion that this form of marriage was neither universal in any society nor representative of any historical stage.
Polyandry is likely to prevail under such conditions as these: a very high sex ratio, lack of sexual jealousy, severe poverty, internalization of the conceptions of common property, benevolence with regard to sex, and insignificance of the economic output of women. It is very unlikely that these conditions will obtain, in combination, long enough in a society to give rise to perpetual, institutionalized polyandry. Even if some of these conditions, such as poverty, prevail other conditions, e.g., sexual jealousy or acquisitiveness will most probably check the tendency toward total societal polyandry. However, various kinds of laxity, sexual hospitality, and sex communism have existed in some societies for various reasons. But these are exceptions and do not take the form of institutionalized marriages and reciprocal commitments.
