Hashim visited his second wife in her own house. In this, he constituted the only contemporary example - and an exceptional one - of a fourth type of polygamy. In the past, a man might contract a marriage with a widow who had her own established household, and visit her at night. She would thus take turns with his existing wife - or wives. Three old women in Sakaltutan were widows of the same man, two of them had maintained their own independent households as widows. In cases like this a polygamous remarriage seems to be a matter of convenience. The woman gains help and protection, but retains a good deal of independence; the man gains temporary control over more resources, and the chance of begetting more sons, without the expense and inconvenience of keeping two wives in one household on one holding of land. Three wives at a time appears to be very rare. Two men in Elbashï, one dead and one still living, were said to have had three at one time. I heard tell of a man in a distant village who had four.
The villagers often speak of the religious injunction to treat all wives exactly equally. The only man in Sakaltutan with two young wives boasted of the care with which he had carried out this rule. But normally the villagers laugh, because they recognise that in most cases such equality of treatment is out of the question.