Mumbai, Nov. 27 -- A majority of Muslim women want polygamy outlawed, with 85% saying it should be legally invalid and 87% wanting the application of existing criminal provisions against their husbands if they remarry, a new survey has found. Around 2,500 Sunni Muslim women across seven states participated in the survey, conducted by the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA), a Muslim women's rights organisation. The BMMA presented the survey report, titled Breaking the Silence: Lived Reality of 2500 Muslim Women in Polygamous Marriages, on Tuesday at the Mumbai Marathi Patrakar Sangh. The report showed that the support for a ban on polygamy came not from the community's elite, but rather the opposite: 59% of respondents-all of them directly affected by polygamy-had studied only up to school level, nearly half had no income, and two-thirds earned less than Rs.5,000 a month. Among their husbands, the figures were similar: 60% had only a school education, and 66% earned less than Rs.20,000 per month. More powerful than the statistics were the testimonies of two women who spoke at the report's launch. Tasleem started sobbing within a few minutes of her narration; Husna was more stoic. What came across most were the feelings of humiliation, inadequacy and rejection they experienced when their husbands remarried, coupled with the pain of the insults and physical violence meted out to them by their husbands, in-laws, and also the second wife. Both women work as domestic workers and are determined to see their children get educated. "There should be a law that makes it impossible for a man to remarry during his first marriage," said Husna. "Both parties should agree to separate; the first wife must be provided a monthly maintenance, only then should he be allowed to remarry, not as they do now, leaving the first wife without support." BMMA co-founder Zakia Soman noted that laws restricting polygamy exist in several Islamic countries, and the Quran itself states that a second marriage can only be entered into under very strict conditions. The survey was conducted through personal contacts obtained through the BMMA's 100,000 members. While most women were ready to speak, albeit only when their husbands were out of the house, quite a few felt too defeated to talk, according to BMMA members who conducted the survey. The women's sense of defeat stemmed from the feeling of being unwanted in both their marital and parental homes. Although 47% of respondents moved to their parents' home after their husbands remarried, they were made to feel that they were a burden, the survey found. They were also turned away by the police, who told them that since a second marriage was permitted in Islam, they could do nothing. Interestingly, a significant number of husbands told their wives that they had married a second time only because their religion gave them this right, according to the report. The survey also contradicted the communal narrative of "hum paanch, humare pachees" propagated by Hindutva groups, with respondents reporting only one or two children across both marriages. In 2016, the BMMA had filed a PIL in the Supreme Court seeking a ban on instant triple talaq, polygamy and nikah halala. The apex court struck down triple talaq in 2017 in response to a number of petitions, including the BMMA's. However, the plea concerning polygamy and nikah halala is still pending. The new survey will lend weight to these petitions, said BMMA co-founder Noorjehan Safia Nia. According to the 2019-2021 National Family Health Survey, the incidence of polygamy was highest among STs (2.4 %), followed by Christians (2.1%), Muslims (1.9%), and Hindus (1.3%)....