Polygamy

This article is about the marriage practice. For the botany term, see Sexual reproduction in plants.

The term polygamy (a Greek word meaning "the practice of multiple marriage") is used in related ways in social anthropology, sociobiology, sociology, as well as in popular speech. Polygamy can be defined as any "form of marriage in which a person [has] more than one spouse."^[1]

In social anthropology, polygamy is the practice of marriage to more than one spouse simultaneously. Historically, polygamy has been practiced as polygyny (one man having more than one wife), or as polyandry (one woman having more than one husband), or, less commonly as group marriage (husbands having many wives and those wives having many husbands). (See "Forms of Polygamy" below.) In contrast, monogamy is the practice of each person having only one spouse. Like monogamy, the term is often used in a de facto sense, applying regardless of whether the relationships are recognized by the state (see marriage for a discussion on the extent to which states can and do recognize potentially and actually polygamous forms as valid). In sociobiology, polygamy is used in a broad sense to mean any form of multiple mating. In a narrower sense, used by zoologists, polygamy includes a pair bond, perhaps temporary. In popular speech, polygamy is often mistakenly assumed to refer to polygyny alone rather than including the other forms, as more polygamous relationships in human history

Polygamy exists in three specific forms, including polygyny (one man having multiple wives), polyandry (one woman having multiple husbands), or group marriage (some combination of polygyny and polyandry). Historically, all three practices have been found, but polygyny is by far the most common.^[2] Confusion arises when the broad term "polygamy" is used when a narrower definition is intended.