A US official tells ABC News that Pakistani government officials have told their American counterparts that they soon will get access to Osama bin Laden's three widows. 
 
 The Obama administration has been asking the Pakistanis for access to the women, who may possess important information about how bin Laden was able to live in his Abbottabad compound for an estimated five years. The three women and the bin Laden children have been in Pakistani custody since last Sunday. 
 
 The White House has also requested that Pakistani authorities give US investigators access to some of the al Qaeda data that Navy SEALs left behind. 
 
 -Jake Tapper 

 After a bit of back of and forth, Pakistan has finally agreed to grant American officials access to Osama bin Laden’s three widows, Interior Minister Rehman Malik told CNN on Tuesday. U.S. authorities will reportedly be given “direct access,” sources say, meaning that they’ll be available for interviews rather than just submitted questions. Malik didn't give a timeline for the talks. But what will the women reveal? The Daily Beast’s David A. Graham breaks down what we know about the various women who vowed to spend their lives with the world’s most wanted man. 
 
 When Osama bin Laden was shot and killed, his matrimonial life came into quick focus as rumors circulated that he had used a wife as a human shield. That story was soon debunked, but the same young wife aroused even more interest when it emerged that she had been shot during the raid. And in a third twist, bin Laden’s companions have now become more than objects of popular fascination: they’ve come to be seen as potentially valuable intelligence assets. 
 
 Osama bin Laden's fifth wife. Credit: Rehan Khan / Landov; AP Photo 
 
 U.S. officials say they want to question the women about their late husband, his life in Pakistan, and who in the country might have known he was there. Amal Ahmed Abdulfattah, the wife who was injured in the raid, has reportedly already told Pakistani interrogators that the bin Laden clan lived in Abbottabad for five years and spent two and a half years before that in a tiny village not far away. But Pakistan isn’t allowing American officials access to them. In fact, it’s not even clear who the women are—but evidence suggests that they are Abdulfattah; Khairiah Sabar, also known as Umm Hamza; and Siham Sabar, also known as Umm Khaled. 
 
 Information on the three women, as well as on bin Laden’s estranged wife, Najwa, and divorced former wife, Khadija, is minimal. Polygamy is not uncommon for well-off Saudi men, even ones of fewer means that bin Laden, says Madawi Al-Rasheed, an anthropologist at King’s College, London, who has written about Saudi society in Contesting the Saudi State. What’s more, the al Qaeda chief kept his views on marriage—both personal and theoretical—close to the vest, with little mention of them in his public statements, according to Bruce Lawrence, a professor at Duke University who edited Messages to the World, a collection of all of bin Laden’s utterances. 
 
 In The Osama Bin Laden I Know, Peter Bergen quoted a college friend of bin Laden’s with whom he formed a view of marriage. Their fathers had practiced polygamy, and they intended to do so as well: the Prophet Muhammad had said that as many as four wives at a time were permissible, as long as none was neglected. Jamal Khalifa said bin Laden felt his father had erred in failing to give all his wives equal attention. “We look at polygamy as solving a social problem, especially when it’s confirmed that there are more women than men in the society,” Khalifa recalled. “It’s not fun, it’s not a matter of just having women with you to sleep with—it’s a solution for a problem. So that’s how [Osama and I] looked at it, and we decided to practice [polygamy] and to be a model.” In The Looming Tower, Lawrence Wright quoted bin Laden using a vivid analogy to describe how he dealt with his complicated domestic life: “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!” 
 
 “It’s like the sultan sitting there in his harem, although unfortunately for bin Laden, he did not have the luxury.” 
 
 Each wife had her own apartment or house where the family lived as the family made repeated moves—leaving Saudi Arabia for Sudan in 1991, then transplanting itself to Afghanistan in 1996, and later moving around Afghanistan and Pakistan. Along the way, all but two of bin Laden’s wives apparently stayed with their husband all or some of the time, a rough-and-tumble path of deprivation and difficulty. 
 
 What do we know about each of his wives? Here are short biographies. 
 
 1. Najwa Ghanem: 
 
 Bin Laden first married when he was a teenager, wedding Najwa Ghanem, a Syrian cousin who was born in 1958, according to her memoir, Growing Up Bin Laden. They married in 1974. Speaking to Peter Bergen, her former sister-in-law Carmen bin Ladin described her as "meek, submissive, highly religious and constantly pregnant”—and indeed, she bore bin Laden 11 children. Although she was the “senior” wife, having married Osama first, she was younger than all his other wives until Amal. Lawrence Wright, in The Looming Tower, reported that she was an avid jogger and not well educated, but friendly and especially fond of decoration and aesthetics, keeping her house in Sudan beautifully appointed and seeking out Western cosmetics and lingerie.
– The US will get its chance to grill Osama bin Laden's three widows. Pakistani government officials have promised access in the near future, a US official tells ABC News. Meanwhile, the Daily Beast rounds up what we know so far about his three widows as well as his estranged and former wives: Najwa Ghanem: Bin Laden's estranged first wife, a Syrian cousin he married as a teenager, bore him 11 children. She fought with her husband frequently, but stayed with him until 2001 when she returned to Syria. Khadija Sharif, aka Umm Ali: Bin Laden married his second wife, nine years his elder and a teacher of Islam, in 1983. She found his lifestyle too trying, and bin Laden allowed a divorce though some say it hurt him deeply. Khairiah Sabar, aka Umm Hamza: She was apparently a child psychology professor from a wealthy family who wanted to marry a "true holy warrior." She was a favorite of bin Laden's because of her commitment to jihad. Siham Sabar, aka Umm Khaled: Another well-educated professor, older than her husband, whose brother was a holy warrior. She married bin Laden in 1987. One friend of bin Laden's says that he married his second, third, and fourth wives because they were spinsters and he expected to be rewarded for the good deed in the afterlife. Unknown: There is little information on the woman bin Laden married in 1994. The relationship was never consummated and was annulled within two days. Amal Ahmed Abdulfattah, aka Amal al-Sabah: His youngest wife and the one injured in the raid on his compound after reportedly rushing the Navy SEALs. She married him in 2000 as a teenager, in a move meant to garner him support with the Yemeni tribes she was a part of.