As Salamu Alaykum It is sad when we treat our fellow wives as if they are robots. If people strictly just go by what is contained in the fiqh works without using wisdom and rahma then they are doomed to failure. They rather follow the letter of the law rather than looking at the spirit of the law. Fiqh manuals are not instructions on optimal marriage but rather they are the bare minimum that one must do to make a marriage valid, and in most cases, issues that must be rectified if it goes before the Qadi. If one looks at the marriage contracts of pre-modern times, women enjoyed full right to stipulate in their contracts clauses of divorce if their husband takes on another wife. There is in fact a book on the topic. If one truly has taqwa and loves and respects his wife, he would take into account his wife's feelings before taking on another wife. If he treats his wife simply as a "thing" then they would not even consult her and marry another one in secret. I dont think the issue is about whether or not one is following a sunnah or not. It is not wajib or fard or even Sunnah mu'akada to marry more than one wife. It is simply mubah or permissible. These have strict conditions that are rarely met in contemporary times. If one is living on welfare with one's first wife, you are in no condition to marry another. What I see is not men attempting to follow the sunnah of the prophet salla llahu alayhi wa sallam, they want to get a second wife for nafsi reasons not in terms of taqwa. The norm is for one to have only one wife unless one has the material wealth and taqwa to be able to take on more than that. We might have people who are wealthy, but we rarely see people of taqwa being able to take on such matters. To make an important note, I am a man and I am married. Many of my teachers have recommended against people taking on another wife because people rarely meet the conditions to treat their wives justly and equally.