POLYGAMY AND ISLAM

8. Polygamy and Islam ~ 183 ~ civilians killed were also men. In the Second World War (1939-45) about 60 million people were either killed or maimed for life, most of them men. In the Iraq-Iran war alone (1979-1988), 82,000 Iranian women and about 100,000 Iraqi women were widowed. All in the space of ten years. Another drain on the availability of men in society is imprisonment. In the U.S., the most civilized society of modern times, no less than 1,300,000 people are convicted daily for one crime of another. A number of them — 97% of whom are men — are obliged to serve lengthy prison sentences.152 151. Encyclopaedia Britannica (1984), vol. 7, p. 37. 152. Ibid, vol 14, p. 1102. The modern industrial system too is responsible for the lower proportion of men in society, death by accident having become a matter of daily routine in present times. There is no country in which accidents do not take place every day on the streets, in the factories and wherever sophisticated, heavy machinery is handled by human beings. In this modern industrial age, such accidents are so much