94% of Kuwaiti men have one wife, figures show

Report: 96 Kuwaitis married to 4 women

Around 94 per cent of Kuwaiti men are married to one wife, according to figures published yesterday by a local newspaper.

Some 176,093 Kuwaiti men, accounting for 94 per cent of the overall married male Kuwaitis in the largely Muslim country keep one wife, Al Rai reported.

Meanwhile, the remaining six per cent are polygamists. They include 10,213 men married to two women at the same time; 743 keeping three wives and 96 married to a maximum of four, the paper added, citing the statistics the source of which was not clear.

Foreigners in majority

In Islam, which permits marrying up to four wives at one time, if a man cannot deal justly with all his wives, then he must marry one only. Kuwait has a population of around 4.6 million, mostly foreigners.