the.com/polygamy
Marrying more than one spouse, because apparently one set of in-laws wasn't enough.
means The practice of having more than one spouse at the same time.
from From Greek polys, 'many,' plus gamos, 'marriage' — the same gamos that gives us 'monogamy' (one marriage) and 'bigamy' (two). The word traveled into English through Late Latin and French around the late 1500s, originally used to describe customs observed in other cultures before settling into its familiar legal and anthropological sense.
- legal status
- illegal in most of the world, legal in dozens of countries
- etymology
- greek for many marriages, practical to a fault
- common form
- polygyny, one husband, multiple wives, dominates historically
- rare twin
- polyandry, one wife, multiple husbands, far less common