Iran lawmakers reject proposal to ease polygamy

An Iranian parliamentary committee rejected on Monday government amendments to a bill that would have allowed men to take additional wives without permission from their first wife - a proposal that angered women and the country's top judicial official.

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.

Critics said the government's proposal was an attempt to further enshrine its strict interpretation of Islam into law and charged it would have undermined women's rights. The outcry over the original bill had forced parliament last week to postpone a vote pending further debate.

Ali Shahrokhi, head of the parliament's judicial committee, said the committee restored a clause in the bill stipulating consent from the first wife for men seeking additional wives.

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. The bill also imposes prison sentences for men who marry girls before they have reached legal age.

The new bill will likely be put to vote in parliament next week.

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 conservatives 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.