JULY 16 — This is a response to comments in your article “Two in five of first wives in polygamous marriages forced to find extra income” by Boo Su-Lyn (July 15, 2010).

As I have explained in my introduction at the IKMAS Public Forum yesterday (July 15), this study was undertaken in the whole of Peninsular Malaysia. We targeted at least 1,000 respondents [drawn from members of polygamous families, i.e. husbands (H), first wife (WF) second wife (WS), a child of first wife (CWF) and a child of second wife (CWS)] for the survey study that was undertaken between August 2008 and April 2010.

Before undertaking the survey, we did one preliminary study in 2006 looking at the records in the various states’ Jabatan Agama and in Jakim in order to (a) establish what is the pattern of polygamous marriages throughout Malaysia; (b) what is the average percentage of Muslim polygamy in each of the states; and (c) based on those findings how best to get a representative sampling of those FIVE typical status positions/roles within a polygamous marriage.

The record-keeping in a majority of the departments was very poor and we have to go back as far as 1990-2005 to get a good picture of the trend of polygamous marriages. In addition there are also gaps in the statistics for certain years.

The average incidence of Muslim polygamy in each state was 2.5 per cent to 3.2 per cent of all REGISTERED marriages in any one particular year from 1990. The officer at Jakim advised us that if one were to take into consideration the UNREGISTERED polygamous marriages, then the figures may go as high as 4.5 per cent to 5.7 per cent of all marriages per annum.

The highest incidence of polygamous marriages since 1990 is to be found in the east coast states of Kelantan and Terengganu. So we decided to undertake the survey study in ALL the 12 states of PENINSULAR Malaysia targeting a total of approximately 1,500-2,000 respondents.

The 12 peninsular states were then divided into FOUR research zones: South, Central, East and North Zones to facilitate efficient research process and management. We have at least 2-3 lead researchers, 1 research officer, 1 research assistant and at least 10-15 enumerators in EACH research zone.

Before the nationwide (Peninsular Malaysia) survey we conducted one pilot study targeting 70 respondents in order to test the questionnaires. We had great difficulty in getting permission from family members in the states of Selangor, the Federal Territory and Johor especially from the cities and big towns — much less resistance in the small towns, rural areas or kampungs.

Only a total of 1,500 completed questionnaires from all the four fesearch zones were returned to the research HQ and after a process of verification and validation we took only 1,235 of them for data entry into SPSS and for the quantitative analysis to be carried out. In addition, all lead researchers had to carry out qualitative, focus, and life-history studies as well as interviewing a number of the respondents (about 70 of them) in depth (In-depth-Interviews or IDIs) to enable the research team to draw in qualitative analysis and get what is called in social and cultural anthropological studies as “thick-description” of the everyday life experiences of H, WF, WS, CWF and CWS in polygamous families.

Any one wishing to challenge these findings should base their comments on equally comprehensive and meticulously gathered data, not just upon ungrounded opinion. This clarification should prove helpful and discourage ill-informed comments or opinions. Constructive comments will, however, be most welcome.

* Norani Othman is lead and head researcher, Principal Research Fellow and Professor of Sociology, IKMAS, UKM. 

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or the publication. The Malaysian Insider does not endorse the view unless specified.