IN a conservative society such as that of Egypt, there is always high concern at having a high number of unmarried young women without giving same interest if the problem touches also young men. When the Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS) first put the figure of the unmarried persons at nine million in 2009, experts gave different analysas of the causes, including the high cost of marriage and the high unemployment rate, as well as the housing problem. The then government made no initiative to solve the problem that threatens stability of the Egyptian society. However, some voices were raised with the suggestion of encouraging polygamy to overcome the problem, ignoring the fact that a large percentage of the unmarried people are of the young men who could not afford the high costs of getting a flat, furnishing it and paying dowry. The suggestion was fiercely criticised for violating Egyptian tradition and for not solving the fundamental problem rather than finding an excuse for polygamy which, although permitted in Islam, is subject to certain conditions and many restrictions. Today with the high profile the Islamists are showing in society, the suggestion seems to have an effective means for its enforcement. Recently, the head of the Agriculture Development Bank announced the bank's new policy of offering soft loans to farmers that would help them to get married. The initiative includes allowing married farmers to have a second wife so as to solve the growing problem of unmarried women in Egypt. The question now is this the concept of agriculture development under rule of the Muslim Brotherhood and their Islamists allies of the Salafists to encourage farmers to get loans not to enhance their crop production but to have more wives and children as a result?! Has the reputable official made a precise study of the number of the unmarried females in the rural region and compared it with the unmarried males to come up with the conclusion of having the former exceed or even double the unmarried men to make such an 'intelligent' suggestion? Polygamy has always been accompanied by increased instances of divorce. Many Egyptian women do not accept having her husband seek another wife and so utilise their legal right of seeking divorce if he took this step without informing her. Therefore, on one hand polygamy could not be the only solution for spinsterhood, especially among the poor, who are in bad need of getting soft loans to create new projects or enhance their production not increasing their families to add to their burdens. Therefore, the result would be more economic burdens on the breadwinners and the government to feed and educate their children. Further, the suggestion made by the senior banker targeted the farmers without giving any consideration to the unmarried men of the urban regions who suffer the most, not only because of the high unemployment rate but also for the skyrocketing prices of flats in the cities. Thus, creating more jobs for the young men and resuming the creation of housing units be rented or sold to young people and repaid over long instalment periods could eradicate the problem. The problem is that new Islamist rulers intend to enforce their ideas that do not actually agree with Egyptian traditions without making precise studies or having societal discussion over it, which matter is expected to have serious negative consequences on the society. The Egyptians have become accustomed to dropping such alienating ideas that belong to Bedouin rather than Islamic society. But the problem today is that those pushing these ideas have become part of the decision-making process. Apparently, the Islamists will not stop in their attempts to turn Egypt into another Saudi society with the erroneous conviction that it reflects the honest righteous concepts and principles of Islam. They ignore the fact that Islam spread out of the Arabian Peninsula to different corners of earth and managed to be adapted to the different cultures of the peoples following the religion. In addition, Islam neither encouraged polygamy nor started it. On the contrary it came to limit it and put stringent restrictions on it to prevent injustice against women. However, those fanatical Muslims who insist on enforcing old traditions that no longer suit today's development, should be resisted by the whole of society, uppermost Al-Azhar, especially given that they continue affiliating these thoughts to the Islamic Shari'a (religious law).
