Osama Bin Laden's Relationship Advice

Unnamed US officials say Pakistani officials may finally let them interview Osama Bin Laden’s three wives who were in the compound with him when he died.

Presumably they’ll be discussing bin Laden’s movements and his still-extant networks, and not his views on marriage and polygamy. Still, we were struck by said views in this Daily Beast rundown of all of the wives’ life stories, originally reported by Lawrence Wright in The Looming Tower:

“One is okay, like walking. Two is like riding a bicycle: it’s fast but a little unstable. Three is a tricycle, stable but slow. And when we come to four, ah! This is the ideal. Now you can pass everyone!”

We don’t know about how all of his wives felt about being thus ridden. We do know he was married to six women; one wife left him, another divorced him, and a mysterious fifth marriage was annulled in 48 hours without consummation. Guess that left him with a tricycle.

Osama Bin Laden’s Loyal Harem [The Daily Beast]
Pakistan May Let US Question Bin Laden’s Wives [MSNBC]