Polygamy and Islam
The Inequality in Numbers
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THE INEQUALITY IN NUMBERS
Records show that male and female births are almost
equal in number. But a study of mortality shows that
the rate is higher for men than for women. This
disparity is in evidence from early childhood to
extreme old age. According to the Encyclopaedia
Britannica: “In general, the risk of death at any given
age is less for females than for males.”
2
The proportionately higher numbers of women in
society can be traced to a variety of causes. For
instance, when war breaks out, the majority of the
casualties are men. In the First World War (1914-18)
about 8 million soldiers were killed. Most of the
civilians killed were also men. In the Second World
War (1939-45) about 60 million people were either
killed or maimed for life, most of them men. In the
Iraq-Iran war alone (1979-1988), 82,000 Iranian
women and about 100,000 Iraqi women were
widowed. All in the space of ten years.
Another drain on the availability of men in society
is imprisonment. In the U.S., the most civilized
society of modern times, no less than 1,300,000
