(CNN) – South Africa’s government is considering allowing women to have multiple husbands, a possibility that has thrown the country’s conservatives into uproar.
The proposal to allow polyandry was included in a green paper from South Africa’s Department of Home Affairs, which hopes to make marriage more inclusive. The option is just one of several in a wide-ranging document, but it has caused intense debate in South Africa. Polygamy, where men marry multiple wives, is legal in the country.
“South Africa inherited a marriage regime that was based on the Calvinist Christian and Western traditions,” the paper notes, adding that the current marriage laws are “not informed by an overarching policy that is based on constitutional values and the understanding of modern society dynamics.”
The document points out that the current law allows the marriage of minors and does not account for couples who change their sex and want to remain married without going through a divorce, among other flaws. As part of the push to make marriage policy stronger, the department consulted with traditional leaders as well as human rights activists and other groups on the key issues.
The human rights activists “submitted that equality demands that polyandry be legally recognized as a form of marriage.”The officials found that people had vastly different views on marriage but one of the proposals put forward is to draw up a “gender neutral” marriage scheme. READ MORE
