Here is a recent article about a law to make it easier for men to
marry up to four wives in Iran.

Source: http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-iran-polygamy,0,1000882,print...

Iranian bill that would make it easier for men to take multiple wives
angers women
By ALI AKBAR DAREINI

Associated Press Writer

2:23 PM EDT, September 4, 2008

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) _ A bill that would allow Iranian men to take
additional wives without the consent of their first wife has angered
women and the country's top justice official, who say it would
undermine women's rights and could be a government attempt to more
deeply enshrine its strict Islamic interpretation into law.

Outcry over the bill forced parliament to postpone a vote scheduled
for Tuesday so lawmakers could debate it further in a committee.

Under Islam, a man can have up to four wives, and countries around the
Mideast allow polygamy. However, Iran is one of the few — along with
Syria and Tunisia — that require the consent of the first wife before
a husband can take another. Still polygamy is rare in Iran, where most
people frown on the practice.

The government of hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proposed
amendments last year to legislation drawn up by the judiciary that was
supposed to be a landmark bill to allow women judges for the first
time since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Opponents said the government is trying to impose an even stricter
version of Islamic law in Iran, especially toward women. The
complaints were enough to force the parliament speaker to send the
bill back to committee before it was to be put to a vote for the first
time Tuesday.

Under Iran's Islamic Republic, women are required to wear headscarves
and conservative clothing. A woman needs her husband's permission to
work or travel abroad and a man's court testimony is considered twice
as important as a woman's.

Ahmadinejad came to power in 2005 in part on a platform of restoring
"Islamic values" that hard-liners say were eroded under the reform
program of his predecessors. In 2006, Iranian activists launched a
campaign to try to change laws that deny women equal rights in matters
such as divorce and court testimonies — sparking a crackdown in which
a number of women activists were arrested.

Despite the current restrictions, Iran's 35 million women have greater
freedoms and political rights than women in most neighboring Arab
states, particularly Saudi Arabia. There are numerous women in
parliament and other political offices, though they are barred from
the presidency and the more powerful, clerical post of supreme leader.

Earlier this week, dozens of women's rights activists, including Nobel
Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, went to parliament to protest the
polygamy bill.

"That the parliament postponed the vote is a significant victory for
women in Iran," said women's rights activist Farzaneh Ebrahimzadeh.
"But we have to fight on. The bill may return to the parliament for a
vote but we have to make sure that articles reducing the rights of
women are deleted."

Hard-line lawmaker Fatemeh Alia said in remarks published Thursday
that she and other conservative lawmakers won't give in and will fight
for a vote in the parliament soon.

"Lawmakers will never give up drawing up Islamic laws ... and won't
give in to mudslinging by a group of secularists gathered around those
obtaining gifts from aliens," Alia was quoted as saying by the daily
Etemad-e-Melli. She was referring to Ebadi, who hard-liners accuse of
working for the interests of Iran's enemies.

The government amendments were added to the Family Protection Bill
soon after it was drawn up last year by the judiciary. Aside from
allowing some female judges, the bill imposes prison sentences for men
who marry girls before they have reached legal age. The bill had sat
in parliament's judiciary committee since its submission to
parliament.

Another government amendment that has drawn objections from the
judiciary would introduce a tax on the dowry grooms pay to wives upon
marriage under Islamic law. Opponents say the government should not be
allowed to get its hands on that money.

Judiciary chief Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi criticized the
government's amendments as harmful to women. He said the proposed
changes have overshadowed the pro-family articles in the original bill
drawn up by the judiciary.

"The dowry tax was unnecessary. It is harmful to women," he told
judges Monday. He also signaled his opposition to the polygamy
amendment, saying it should be "amended and debated, away from public
controversy."

The bill is now the focus of family discussions in Iran. At an "iftar"
dinner Thursday ending the daily fast in the holy month of Ramadan, a
family hotly debated the issue.

"A man taking another wife will give financial protection to the
second woman. This will help fight social vices in the society," said
Reza Khodakarami. His wife, Mahtab, strongly disagreed. "No. It only
tramples women's rights," she said, as other family members clapped
and whistled in support of her comments.

Iran has refused to ratify the U.N. convention on women's rights, and
the country's senior clerics in Qom, Iran's main center of Islamic
learning, have rejected the convention as un-Islamic.

But women's rights got a boost with the 1997 election of former
President Mohammad Khatami, a reformist who appointed a female vice
president. Since then, other women have held positions within the
government but have not been Cabinet ministers. And while women in
Iran can run for parliament, they are prohibited from running for
president.