Happy ever after...?

Let's face it, marriage ain't easy! Most girls dream of their wedding day and put a lot of preparation and planning into it, even if everything goes well on the day, they don’t always get the fairy-tale happy ever after. Every marriage has its problems, money worries and pressures of work not to mention the in-laws! The husband and wife usually work together to sort out their difficulties, but what if there was another person in the marriage, like the husband's other wife! If you’re from the Muslim community, you will almost certainly know a man who has more than one wife. Although it’s not illegal under Islamic law, many people would say it's immoral, but is it really? I mean it's not very much different to a guy who has a wife at home and has a mistress or two on the side, is it? At least if he's married to them, he is responsible for them. It got me thinking, why does Islam permit polygamy? If you ask most Muslim women the one thing they won't or can't tolerate is sharing her man with another woman.  So, it begs the question, why do they do it?? Parliament law in the UK does recognise that people can be married to more than one person at a time, and technically they're not committing an offence,  they just can't marry more than one person under state law, because then it falls into the category of bigamy. I thought bigamy was the same as polygamy, Confused? me too!  So, it's ok for a man to marry more than one woman so long as it's under foreign law in countries that allow it, but you can't while you live here in Britain? I'm still confused because I always thought that it was illegal. I think the problem arises when there's the issue of equality between the wives. The husband can only marry one of his wives under state law, so which one does he choose? Does this then mean that she has more rights than her co-wife, and is this really fair? I think that this is something I need to look into.