Egyptian journalist Hayam Dorbek has rocked the Islamic world by suggesting that a man who takes multiple wives promotes women’s rights. She calls polygamy “a license from God to stabilize society and solve its problems.”

Islam allows men to marry up to four women, though such practice is less common Egypt than in other countries like Saudi Arabia.

Of course, Judaism makes no such allowances. When us Jewish women find our Jewish princes, we tend to be quite possessive of them. But I’ve been married seven years now, and frankly, the thought of sharing the husband with another woman seems a small price to pay for more free time, shared chores, a live-in babysitter…listen, I’m a working mother. I wake up at 6am and am on my feet tending to kids, picking up Husband’s towels and cooking three meals a day until I sit down at my desk and work until midnight. As Number One Wife, I could leave all the crap details like laundry and making p.b.&j.’s to Second Wife (or maybe Third!?) and reserve the prime Saturday date night slot. What modern Jewish mother wouldn’t at least consider it in the name of “stabilizing the home and solving its problems”?

Any takers, single women? We live in an 800 square-foot house, you could have a cot in the mud room. Husband is cute but talks too much. You must be fairly unattractive so as not to threaten Number One Wife’s fragile self-esteem and be impeturbable to whining.

(Illustration c/o The Curt Jester.)