Polygamy and wife abuse: a qualitative study of muslim women in America

Improving health outcomes for abused women requires that service providers know how to intervene with women from diverse cultural backgrounds living in a variety of family structures. Because little is known about the growing and diverse American Muslim population, the investigator examined the lived experiences of abused American Muslim women. Using an adaptation of interpretive phenomenology, data were collected from 17 American Muslim women from diverse ethnic backgrounds. Findings highlighted in this article examine the signficance of polygamy in shaping American Muslim women's experiences of abuse and describe the ways that polygamy and abuse can sometimes be interwoven phenomena.