In numerous societies across the Arab world, polygamy is accepted as unconditionally permissible in Islam, even though the religion only allows for it to happen under a very tight frame of conditions.
Though some women say they aren't against their husbands taking other wives while being married to them, others hold an opposite stance on the matter.
In recent years, the phenomenon has become culturally unacceptable in many Arab countries, with many wives filing for divorce from polygamous men.
We spoke to a few of them and they told us more about the reasons behind their decisions.
"He didn't follow sharia, except when it came to polygamy"
Speaking to StepFeed, Sahar, a UAE-based Egyptian woman who left her husband after he decided to take another wife during their marriage, spoke of her decision.
"After five years of being married and having two children together, he told me he wanted to marry someone else. I was so angry, I wanted to beat him up when he said that. When I asked him why, he had the most ridiculous response," she said.
"He said that because he was well off, he could equally spend money on both of us and I just couldn't even handle that. This isn't about money at all, it's about loving someone and being loyal and faithful to them. It's either you are or you aren't and my husband clearly wasn't," she added.
Sahar divorced her husband just weeks after he first spoke of marrying someone else and never looked back. She also got custody of her two young children.
When asked why she is against polygamy, Sahar said:
"I don't believe in polygamy and I don't care what any religious edict says, I know that in Islam what my husband did was wrong. He didn't follow sharia, except when it came to polygamy. The Quranic verse that mentions it clearly states that men can only marry more than one woman at a time if they can treat each wife equally, but it then also says that no man will ever be able to treat all his wives equally.To me that sums it all up."
"I ended that marriage out of respect for myself as a woman and human being"
Loulwa, a Saudi woman, divorced her husband four years into their marriage when he took another wife behind her back during her second pregnancy.
"We already had a two-year-old boy and were expecting another child. Not in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that he was married to someone else. I thought our marriage was great right up until I found a contract to his second marriage hidden in one of our closets," she said.
The mother of two confronted her husband at the time, asking him why he'd married another woman.
"He didn't know what to say, there was no reason for what he did. He disregarded my love for him, my loyalty and even my dignity," she added.
Loulwa's husband and family asked her to wait until she gave birth before making a decision over the situation, but she refused to do so.
"I couldn't spend even one more day with him after I discovered what he'd done. I went back to my family home and got a divorce four months before I gave birth to a baby girl. Most of my family members stood against my decision, but my parents have been supportive. Knowing me, they knew I wouldn't be able to live with my husband after what he'd done," she explained.
"I ended that marriage out of respect for myself as a woman and human being. I don't think any woman should accept such a humiliating situation and I honestly don't know why our societies expect us to," she said.
"To me, the fact that he married someone else meant that he didn't love me"
In a statement to StepFeed, Mona, a 27-year-old Egyptian woman, said she discovered her 40-year-old husband had secretly married another woman after the second wife revealed the union.
"At first I couldn't believe he would do that to me. But apparently, after a heated argument he had with his second wife, she wanted to anger him and called me to tell me what had happened between them," she said.
The young woman confronted her husband with the matter and when he didn't deny it, she immediately asked him to divorce her.
"He kept begging me to stay with him, telling me that it was his religious right to marry her and that he'd done nothing wrong other than keeping it a secret. I didn't even say anything because I know how accepted this rhetoric is. People all around me would tell me it was halal (acceptable in Islam) for him to take another wife, but if they really knew our religion, they would've known it wasn't," she added.
"We'd only been married for nine months when he did this. To me, the fact that he married someone else meant that he didn't love me and I really didn't want to be in a loveless marriage," she explained.
Mona said she'd much rather be divorced than have to "share" her husband with another woman.
"Being divorced isn't the easiest thing in our society, I knew what I was getting myself into with that. But I'd rather face everything, every difficulty, every obstacle and not have to live with him because I consider what he did a form of cheating. Many would disagree with me for believing that, but they know it's the truth," she said.
"He asked me to attend his second wedding, I sent him divorce papers"
Nouf, a Kuwaiti mother of three, ended her marriage after her husband told her he was marrying another woman. Not only that, he also asked her to attend his second wedding.
"I can't describe what I felt when I heard him say that, we were married for 17 years and had three kids. I was devastated but also determined not to accept the situation،" she said.
"I knew he would try to stop me from leaving the house after he told me about it, so I pretended everything was normal for three days, I played along with it and acted like I wasn't objecting to it. They were the longest few days of my life," she explained.
Nouf then told her husband she was taking her kids to spend the day at her sister's home. While he was at work, she packed up a few of their belongings and left for good.
"I stayed with my sister for a few days, then got my brother to help me rent out an apartment. A week later, I hired a lawyer who told my husband I was divorcing him. He asked me to attend his second wedding, I sent him divorce papers, I think that was the least I could've done," she added.
When asked what her husband did after her decision to end their union, Nouf said:
"He tried to reason with my family. He told them that as a man, sharia grants him the right to marry four women, and no one argued with him on that because it's widely accepted here. Very few people try to understand the emotional and psychological effect this has on a wife, on children, they're only looking at it from a religious point of view, that's terribly flawed."
"Even when I asked a sheikh about the matter, he told me my husband hadn't done anything against religion with his marriage. Imagine, someone who's supposed to know the Quran inside out said that. To me, my religion, my Islam, would never allow men to marry more than one woman at a time with no reason. Reading the scriptures related to this proved my point. In our religion polygamy is only accepted in very specific circumstances," she added.
Nouf pressed on with the divorce and succeeded in separating from her husband. She now lives with her three children and is working on launching a small business in order to become financially independent.
"Throughout my marriage, my husband refused to let me work, saying that our children needed me. I accepted, because to me, bringing them up was just as demanding as any full time job. Now that I divorced him, I don't want to be financially dependent, so I am building a career in catering," she said.