A 23-year-old Pakistani man has married two women at the same time - a novel solution to his dilemma of deciding whether to marry the woman he loves or go ahead with the marriage his family arranged.

Pakistani law allows polygamy based on the concept that Islam, the main religion in the country, allows up to four wives. But men who take multiple wives usually do so years apart.

Azhar Haidri initially refused to marry 28-year-old Humaira Qasim - the woman to whom he has been engaged since childhood - because he wanted to marry the woman with whom he had fallen in love, 21-year-old Rumana Aslam.

But the decision threatened to split his family apart since arranged marriages are often customary in Pakistan, so he came up with this alternative approach.