I refer to your report PPP's polygamy supporter to get show-cause letter (March 2) in which Peoples Progressive Party Youth chief T Murugiah raised the ire of women groups as well as his own party when he made the controversial polygamy call without previous endorsement of the party's supreme council.

But he should be commended for his motive to highlight social problems and the plight of illegitimate children born out of wedlock to women in relationship with married men.

Even PPP president senator M Kayveas admitted that it could not be denied that Murugiah's suggestion had resulted in the problem of illegitimate children and single mothers being discussed at cabinet level and positive steps being initiated by the Women and Family Development and the National Unity and Social Development ministries to counter the victimisation of at least 100,000 illegitimate children faced with difficulty of having their births registered in the absence of their biological fathers ( Sunday Star , March 3).

If the PPP were really "progressive" as its name suggests, it shouldn't issue a show-cause letter to Murugiah whose only infraction was to speak sincerely his convictions in the face of certain attack by women groups but whose actions have proven to bring positive results as admitted by the party president.

Neither should a progressive party go out of the way to assuage the outrage of women organisations which have not been altogether consistent in promoting womens causes judging by their apparent indifference and lack of outcry when the Home Ministry refused to issue a visa to Chu Mei-Feng, a former Taiwanese politician whose sexual liaison with a married men was secretly filmed and circulated by the media.

Indeed, according to Wanita MCA chief Dr Ng Yen Yen, Chu should not be allowed to darken MCAs San Choon Hall with her scandals even when her shows have been deemed healthy and clean enough by the morally puritanical, clinical and sanitised standards of Singapore.

Here is a woman victimised in a man's world.

When a private sexual relationship outside the legitimate framework is publicised, it is the woman alone who is tainted and cannot even be allowed to make a living from her concerts to explain her side of the story and offer advice on how to cope with the disgrace.

The argument that Chu should not profit from her notoriety does not take into account that she did not orchestrate this notoriety for the purpose of profit.

It should be noted that Chu is herself a victim of an unprincipled friend who brought her professional disgrace and personal humiliation with his callous actions.

Why is it always said that it's unfairly a man's world?

Because when a private sexual relationship is exposed, it is only the woman alone between the two who has to bear the scorn of being the scarlet woman.

As in the case of Chu, she is not even allowed to state her side of the story through the concert because she is scandalous. Considerations of social approval and respectability weighed against a woman are always accorded priority over justice for the 'scandal-tainted' woman.

So it is double-speak by all those who expressed sympathy for Chus plight yet support the call to ban her concert.

And what kind of cause then can women groups claim to be fighting for women when they do not even express in principle an outcry against this denial of visa to Chu or San Choon Hall as venue for her concert?

Just like Murugiah's polygamy advocacy. The suggestion may be offensive to women but its underlying motive is good — to accord women caught in illicit relationships the equal access to legal recourse against the assets of errant biological fathers for the benefit of their illegitimate children which the Monogamous Law Reform Marriage and Divorce Act seek to deny by preserving to confine only to the man's registered wife and their children.

Yet women groups attacked him, unreservedly and unqualifiedly. How are women groups sincere in tackling women's problems and advancing their cause when they accord greater importance to considerations of social and moral approval than the right of a large segment of mistresses and their illegitimate children to legal recognition and eking a decent economic living?

On this premise, if PPP were to live up to its name, it should not unduly heed the outrage of such 'double standards' reactive women groups, and in the process sacrifice its very own that is sincere enough to confront the real bread-and-butter issues of his women constituency and articulate them in the face of sure and certain attack by groups claiming pretensions to advance women causes, when they sometimes are actually not.