ONLY ONE WIFE

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 394, 30 June 1928, Page 10

ONLY ONE WIFE

ALBANIAN INDIGNATION MODERNISING ISLAM BELGRADE, April 4. The modernising movement in Islam which has begun to unveil the women and de-fez the men appears to have infected the little State of Albania. Albania is, like Yugoslavia, a country of a great mixture of faiths, says the London “Observer.” In Albania there are very few Jews, and. as far as can be ascertained, complete absence of Plymouth Brethren (who are endemic in the Yugoslav Voivcdina), but there are nevertheless Catholics and Greek Orthodox and two kinds of Mohammedans. Those religious divisions correspond more nearly with tribal divisions than in Yugoslavia, and inter-tribal quarrels thus have the stimulation of religious difference. The majority of Albanians, however, and the ruling group are Mohammedan, and Albania should be looked on as a Mohammedan country. It is, therefore, of the greater interest that an inter-confessional law has just been promulgated in Tirana. The new law, with a view to consolidating the country, makes the inter marriage of the members of the ddifferent faiths a possibility. The most interesting and revolutionary provision, however, is that which deliberately prohibits polygamy. The Mohammedans of Albania in future will be allowed only one wife. As Albania is a primitive country, which still maintains a medieval patriarchal form of life, and is one of the few countries in which any large proportion of Mohammedans can afford a second wife, the law is a very drastic blow. The indignation against unveiling and de-fezing, to the discomfiture of Mohammedan diehards, appears to have no real support in the Koran. The prohibition of polygamy, however, is in direct conflict with the word of the Prophet, and it remains to be seen to what extent it meets with passive—perhaps, more properly, active—resistance.