“Love conquers all?”: Women's narratives on polygyny as an internal critique of intersecting patriarchies

Abstract This article unveils how gender inequality and colonial dichotomy became visible in the practice of polygyny among Muslim‐Christian intermarried couples in the southern Philippines. Based on ethnographic research conducted in Iligan, it documents the lived experiences of Christian wives, Maranao Muslim women, and female Muslim converts. While Christian norms have long stigmatized Muslim polygyny, public discussions within Muslim societies in the Philippines have been limited. For women in inter‐religious marriages, polygyny provokes painful negotiations that expose intersecting hierarchies of gender, religion, and ethnicity. They described their experiences in their own words, often diverging from the normative discourse, reconstructing the concepts of intimacy and reinterpreting religious teachings in ways that resonate with women in different ethnic and religious positions. Although interpretations and evaluations of polygyny are publicly fragmented by coloniality and normative discourses, these women's experiences reveal underlying alignment. The article argues that their stories constitute an internal critique of the intersecting patriarchies embedded in the Philippine state, Spanish and American forms of ongoing coloniality, and Muslim and Christian societies.