Is Germany Wise to Allow Afghan Muslim Migrants to Practice Polygamy?

Instead of making Muslim migrants conform to the laws of the advanced West, including its ban on polygamy, German officials have granted the requests by Muslim Afghan men to be allowed to bring with them to Germany two of their wives. Robert Spencer wrote about this briefly here, and more on this surrender to Islamic mores , and the misogyny implicit in allowing a Muslim man to have plural wives when a Muslim woman can have only one husband, can be found here: “German government permits Afghan refugees to bring second wives to country despite polygamy laws,” by Thomas Brooke, Remix News, September 4, 2023:

Afghan nationals who worked with the German army during the military operation in the country have had requests to bring their second wives and children to Germany approved, a move that is posing complex legal problems.

The law banning polygamy has not changed. But some government officials, grateful to the Afghans who worked as interpreters for the Bundeswehr in Afghanistan, have granted the requests of these men — so far apparently just a few — to bring their two wives with them to Germany.

The German government may think it owes a debt to Afghans. But allowing them to come to Germany with two wives — disregarding, that is, the law outlawing polygamy — is not the way to repay that debt. It is enough that these Afghans will be allowed to settle in Germany and take advantage, with their large families, of all the benefits the generous German welfare state provides: free or subsidized housing, free medical care, free education, unemployment benefits, family allowances, and more. Allowing them to break a long-established principle of German family law should not be an additional benefit. Let the Afghan husbands choose which wife they wish to bring with them to Germany, and if they don’t want to make that choice, they should be helped to find refuge in another Muslim country, such as Pakistan, where polygamy is recognized.

Allowing Afghan refugees to bring two wives to enter Germany poses all kinds of problems. What if an Afghan, a former employee of the Bundeswehr who “saved the lives of German soldiers,” has three, or even four, wives and wants to bring them all with him? Should the German government allow it? If the government is now willing in principle to permit polygamy, on what basis can it allow that Afghan to bring in “two wives” but forbid another Afghan to bring in three or four? What would be the rationale? “Polygamy” is okay, but there have to be limits? And what about Muslim migrants from other countries — would they now be allowed to bring in plural wives, or even to marry several wives while living in Germany? Why should Afghans be favored over Syrians, or Iraqis?

And what of the effect on German families, as they see on the streets of their cities Muslim men followed by two or more Afghan women, wearing the full-length chador, with even the face covered, walking submissively behind their lord and master, and with an enormous gaggle of children in tow? Won’t such a sight be a shock to any sense of social cohesion, with such different rules applied to Muslims and non-Muslims, and also undermine the principle of the equality of the sexes? What effect would the spectacle of these polygamous families have on German women and girls? And might some German men begin to ponder why it is Muslim men can practice polygamy in Germany while they, in their own country, can not? Difficult questions.

Afghan employees of the Bundeswehr were granted visas to reside in Germany following the military withdrawal from Afghanistan, and family reunification laws enabled the employees to bring their spouses and children with them.

However, the German newspaper Westfalenpost reported that in at least two known instances, subsequent reunification requests were approved to bring further spouses and children. This was confirmed by the local immigration office in the Hochsauerland district.

In one instance, the husband is living with one wife and three children while the second wife lives in a separate apartment nearby with another seven children.

German taxpayers are now paying for these exceedingly large Muslim families. The husband is very likely unemployed, or at best, has a low-paying menial job. He has two wives living in two separate apartments, paid for by he state. Both wives are full-time mothers who are also unemployed. There are a total of ten children. Think of the expense to maintain this family: the two apartments, the medical care, the education, the family allowances for food and clothing — all of these benefits for three adults and ten children. It adds up precipitously, to be paid by the German taxpayers.

Another husband is understood to be living with both his wives and nine shared children.

Most people in the advanced West limit their family size to one or two children, because of the expense of rearing a child. But these Afghans, with their exceedingly large families, obviously don’t worry. They have nine, ten, twelve children apiece, and they are bringing all of them to Germany; they may have a few more once in the country. And why not? The German Infidels will provide.

Polygamy has always been illegal in Germany. But now that bureaucrats handling immigrants have decided to accommodate the requests of some Afghans to bring their second wives, with their children, with them to Germany, will these requests spread, and more Afghans be given permission to bring their two wives with them?

This issue is something that could become more frequent after the federal government relaxed family reunification laws.

Germany issued an increased number of visas last year for the purpose of reuniting spouses of foreign nationals. A total of 71,129 visas were granted; Indians and Turks received the highest number of approved requests with 8,930 and 8,778 cases, respectively.

The figure could have been much higher had 13,607 people hoping to join their spouses not failed to pass the language requirement test.

Germany has bucked the recent European trend towards more restrictive immigration measures with its liberal coalition government instead opting to attract more migrant workers.

Does the “liberal” German government that wants to attract more migrant workers not realize that there is a very great difference between the Muslim economic migrants, who come not to work but to live for as long as they can on the dole, and other migrants who do, indeed, come to work? Not all migrants are going to contribute to the economy; some will become great financial burdens on the state, as we have seen happen with Muslim migrants throughout western Europe.

Monika Schnitzer, who heads the influential German government’s Council of Experts, told the Süddeutsche Zeitungin July that new arrivals didn’t even need to speak German as she called for mass immigration to hit 1.5 million a year.

Monika Schnitzer is a danger to the German state and society. She may be the head of the Council of Experts, but she is a fit-to-be-tied nitwit. She thinks it splendid that migrants don’t even have to speak — i.e. know — German, as was previously required of would-be migrants, which of course opens the door wide to even more migrants. And she wants mass immigration to increase to 1.5 million a year, more even than Angela Merkel’s record of 1 million immigrants allowed into Germany in 2015. How many of those 1.5 million migrants will be Muslim? In recent years,86% of those who were admitted to Germany as “refugees” (which is what economic migrants call themselves) have been Muslims. There is no reason to think that percentage will change; it might even rise now that the former requirement for migrants to know German has been jettisoned.

As the number of new arrivals rises, including large families under reunification laws, so too is the number of children receiving state benefits, which has hit a record high. A total of 888,218 foreign minors now receive state welfare benefits, a figure that has tripled in 13 years, with 303,962 minors receiving financial assistance in 2010.

More madness with this “reunification.” The Muslim men arrive first, claiming to be “refugees,” Then the German government allows for the “reunification of families.” That means they can bring in their wives, and children. Or, as of now, it may mean two wives, and their children. How many children? The Afghan women have a fertility rate of 4.72, so an Afghan man with two wives will have, on average, ten children. And Muslims worldwide have the highest fertility rate of any religious group: 2.9. Replacement level is 2.1. The average German family has 1.612 children. In twenty years, or thirty, what will Germany look like demographically? And overall in Europe, the fertility rate is even lower — 1.43. What will Europe, which now has tens of millions in its midst, look like demographically in twenty years, or thirty? That is, if nothing is done.

Let’s hope the Germans come to their senses. They must start by at once putting paid to this cockamamie scheme of allowing Afghan migrants to practice polygamy in Germany. And then, not only should the government reimpose its previous German language requirement for would-be immigrants, but also require a cultural literacy test, to gauge an applicant’s knowledge of Western civilization and German history without which he is unlikely to fit in. That test will include, of course, the history of Christianity, the Enlightenment, and the Holocaust — three subjects that make Muslims most uneasy, and that they find difficult to truthfully discuss. That’s too bad.