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Polygamy and Law in Contemporary Saudi Arabia by Maha A. Z. Yamani is a useful but flawed book. Its significance lies in two areas: it identifies an increase in polygamy among Western-oriented elites in the Hijaz region of Saudi Arabia, and it sheds light on the important but understudied topic of polygamy. Its principle shortcomings can be considered under the rubric of overgeneralization. First, although the author notes that her primary data was collected from fifteen polygamous men and an ostensibly equally limited number of women, she often states or implies that her findings are applicable to the Hijaz region, Saudi Arabia, or the Muslim world. This problem is particularly serious because it precludes her from adequately defining the scope of the book's conclusions. Second, Yamani extrapolates from the problems she identifies in the practice of polygamy to Islamic treatment of women. This overgeneralization leads to a negatively biased depiction of Islam. Nevertheless, with these caveats, I recommend this book to all who wish to gain greater insight into either polygamy or the ethnography of Saudi Arabia.
The greatest strength of this book is its ethnography, found in the chapters on "The Social Acceptability of Polygamous Marriage," "The Character of the Polygamous Relationship," and "The Reasons for Polygamy." These pages provide a moving depiction of the difficulties caused by polygamy from the perspectives of each of those affected, most notably, the husband, the first wife, and the subsequent wives. The consequences are usually worst for the first wife, who suffers the emotional pain of jealousy, the financial loss of a share of her husband's wealth, and the public humiliation that comes with the implication that she is unable to satisfy her husband. The husband, encouraged to polygamy by male friends who see the state as "macho," is sometimes distressed after the fact by the extent of the pain that he has caused his...