Cherry is right. Consent is not required (because if she is not happy with the arrangement, she can always leave him). What is required is informing the first wife. This act of “performing the sunnah” is so precious for some of the men of nowadays, that they do it and hide it from the first wife. That is pure adultery, no matter what anyone says. Your not telling your first wife strips her from the right of leaving you if she is not happy with the your second marriage. Plus, now you are not treating both wives equally, as the second one knows of the first marriage, but the first one is not aware of the second marriage.
Anyhoo, as I said earlier that polygamy was part of Arab culture. Those who say that the act was permitted in islam to help widows and divorced women could not be more wrong. In fact I have two question for them
- Is marrying a widow, the only way to help her? I mean you are so tharki that you cant help a widow without sleeping with her?
- If polygamy is really allowed for such noble cause, then Islam would’ve never put a limit on repeating this good cause. Why there is a limit of four? Why cant you marry 10, 20 or 100? Help as many as you can if polygamy’s only purpose was to help such ladies. Also, if helping widows and divorced women was the reason to allow polygamy, then it would be prohibited to marry a virgin when you are bringing in second wife.
Here is the real deal.
Back in the days, during tribal clashes (which was very common in those days, as you were either a friend, or an enemy), the difference between winner and loser was the numbers. If my tribe has 1000 warriors and you have 400, then it does not matter how brave you are, cause we are going to beat the heck out of you, simply because our numbers are greater than yours. Now because the tribes remained in war for years and years, constant supply of young warriors was a necessity. They only way of doing it was having as many births in a year as possible. Once a woman is pregnant, that factory is locked for 9 months. There is nothing she can do about it. But the guy can go and impregnate another woman. That is why it was just common sense to have men marrying multiple wives, and not wives having multiple husbands (at one time). It was less of sexual pleasures, and more of supply and demand reason. Marriage were a warrior producing factories back then, if you may.
Such arrangement turned men into assets - and because women were often captured and became loundi/Kaneez of the capturer - they were looked as liabilities (hence killing of female infants). This is also the reason why women were married young, because sooner you marry a woman, more kids she can produce.
This may all sound horrific, especially to women of our time - but ladies, if you were living in those days, you would desire such social setup. Without that, you would not be able to see your 30th birthday. Having a hubby who has you as one of his wife was much better option for women of that time, than for the same women to be sold in markets as a kaneez.
Now the reasons vanished, but the tradition carried on. You still can have a good reason to bring in second wife, but as I said in the beginning, its a sin (at least in my book) to do it without telling your first wife.