POLYGAMY IN THE QUR'AN (4:3)

Chapter 4:3 "If you fear that you will not deal fairly with orphan girls, you may marry whichever [other] women deem good to you, two, three, or four.  If you fear that you cannot be equitable [to them], then marry only one, or you slave(s): that is more likely to make you avoid bias."

1.In pre-Islamic Arabia, some guardians of orphan girls used to marry them in order to take their property (see 4:127)

2: Literally 'what your right hand possess'.

This verse of the Qur'an wasn't a verse giving Muslims permission to marry more than one woman, it was a verse limiting Muslims to up to four wives if they can all be treated equally.  The Qur'an actually favors one wife for each man.  Keep in mind that all throughout the Old Testament, polygamy was practiced:

Exodus 21:¹⁰If he take him another wife; her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage, shall he not diminish.

Deuteronomy 21:¹⁵If a man have two wives, one beloved, and another hated, and they have born him children, both the beloved and the hated; and if the firstborn son be hers that was hated:

2 Samuel 5:¹³And David took him more concubines and wives out of Jerusalem, after he was come from Hebron: and there were yet sons and daughters born to David.

1 King 11:³And he (Solomon) had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines: and his wives turned away his heart.

2 Chronicles 11:²¹And Rehoboam loved Maachah the daughter of Absalom above all his wives and his concubines: (for he took eighteen wives, and threescore concubines; and begat twenty and eight sons, and threescore daughters.)

(There are no restrictions to polygamy in the bible)

This is taken from the PBS website:

One may observe that, although it has been abused in some times and some places, polygamy has under certain circumstances a valuable function. In some situations it may be considered as the lesser of two evils, and in other situations it may even be positively beneficial arrangement.

The most obvious example of this occurs in times of war when there are inevitably large numbers of widows and girls whose fiancés and husbands have been killed in the fighting. One has only to recall the figures of the dead in the first and second world wars to be aware that literally millions of women and girls lost their husbands and fiancés and were left alone without any income or care or protection for themselves or their children. If it is still maintained that under these circumstances a man may marry only one wife, what options are left to the millions of other women who have no hope of getting a husband? Their choice, bluntly stated, is between a chaste and childless old maidenhood, or becoming somebody's mistress; that is, an unofficial second wife with no legal rights for herself or for her children. Most women would not welcome either of these since most women have always wanted and still do want the security of a legal husband and family....

There may be other circumstances unrelated to war -- individual circumstances, where marriage to more than one wife may be preferable to other available alternatives -- for example where the first wife is chronically sick or disabled. There are of course some husbands who can manage this situation, but no one would deny its potential hazards. A second marriage in some cases could be a solution acceptable to all three parties.

Again there are cases in which a wife is unable to have children, while the husband very much wants them. Under Western laws a man must either accept his wife's childlessness if he can, or if he cannot, he must find a means of divorce in order to marry again. This could be avoided in some cases if the parties agreed on a second marriage.

There are other cases where a marriage has not been very successful and the husband loves another woman. This situation is so familiar that it is known as the Eternal Triangle. Under Western laws the husband cannot marry the second woman without divorcing the first one. But the first wife may not wish to be divorced. She may no longer love her husband, but she may still respect him and wish to stay with him for the security of marriage, for herself and their children. Similarly the second woman may not wish to break up the man's first family. There are certain cases such as this where both women could accept a polygamous marriage rather than face divorce on the one hand or an extra-marital affair on the other.

I have mentioned some of these examples because to the majority of Westerners polygamy is only thought of in the context of a harem of glamorous young girls, not as a possible solution to some of the problems of Western society itself. I have given some time to it not in order to advocate its indiscriminate use, but in an attempt to show that it is a practice not to be condemned without thinking of its uses and possible benefits in any community.
 

Also, from PBS:

it is often forgotten that there was a socio-historical context within which the verse was revealed. That context was a period of tragedy in Islam after the battle of Uhud, when dozens of men from the still formative Muslim community in Medina were killed in one day. Numerous women and children were left without support. To deal with this problem, Allah revealed the verse permitting men to be polygamous. Given the tragedy of the battle of Uhud, Allah could have sanctioned the existing practice of unlimited polygamy; but instead, while allowing men to be polygamous, Allah restricted the number to four. We wish to emphasize that the clear intention in the Qur'an is to restrict polygamy. Unfortunately, in practice, the restrictions imposed in the Qur'an have often not been applied, and the context within which the verse was revealed has been completely overlooked. By stressing the need for just conduct toward women and the need for equal treatment of each wife and recognizing the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of doing so (4:129), this verse, in fact advocates monogamy as the original and ideal state of marriage in Islam.