Polygamy

What is polygamy?

Polygamy is a form of marriage in which one person is married to two or more partners at the same time. The word comes from Greek: poly means many, gamos marriage. Polygamy is about marriage and often has a religious or cultural background, which sets it apart from modern, egalitarian polyamory.

Polygyny and polyandry

Polygamy comes in two forms. Wikipedia describes them like this: if a man is married to more than one wife, that’s polygyny; if a woman is married to more than one husband, that’s polyandry. Polygyny is by far the best-known form and the reason polygamy is popularly called “having many wives”. Polyandry is much rarer and occurs mainly when brothers marry one woman together, a form found in parts of Tibet, Nepal, and northern India. This fraternal polyandry traditionally kept a family’s property together, because the land wasn’t split across several marriages. Some religious traditions permit polygyny under conditions, which explains why the form is far more common in certain regions than in others.

How common polygamy is

Polygamy is no fringe phenomenon worldwide, though in most countries it isn’t the norm. In a survey of 1,231 societies, collected between 1960 and 1980, 588 had frequent polygyny, 453 occasional, 186 were monogamous, and only 4 had polyandry. A later count found that 83 percent of the societies studied allowed polygyny, 16 percent were monogamous, and 1 percent had polyandry. Important here: a society allowing polygyny doesn’t mean most marriages there are polygamous. The practice is often much more limited than the permission. Geographically, polygamy is most concentrated in what’s called the “polygamy belt”, a strip across West and Central Africa, with countries like Burkina Faso, Mali, Gambia, Niger, and Nigeria where the share of polygamous marriages is estimated to be the highest in the world.

Religion, culture, and power

Polygamy rarely stands on its own. It nearly always ties in with religious rules, economic relations, or family lines, and that explains why it’s a given in one society and unthinkable in another. Take a polygynous marriage in a society where several wives are common: there, inheritance, status, and continuing the family line often play a bigger role than romance. That’s exactly where polygamy collides with the Western emphasis on equality between partners. Where one man has several wives but the reverse is absent, a power difference is built into the form itself. That’s one of the reasons Western legal systems, the Dutch among them, don’t recognize polygamy. That doesn’t make polygamy automatically involuntary, but it does explain why the subject is almost never discussed apart from questions of power and equality.

Polygamy in the Netherlands

Polygamy is not allowed in the Netherlands. The Dutch Civil Code is clear: a person can be married to only one other person at a time (Book 1, article 33). Entering a second marriage while you’re already married is called bigamy and is a criminal offense under article 237 of the Criminal Code, with a maximum prison sentence of four years, and six if you concealed the existing marriage from the second partner. A polygamous marriage contracted abroad is generally not recognized here. That comes up mainly with people who move to the Netherlands with a marriage from a country where polygamy is allowed: legally only one partner counts as spouse here, with consequences for things like inheritance and residence. For concrete questions about that, a lawyer or the municipality is the right place, not this page.

Polygamy is not polyamory

“Polygamy and polyamory are the same.” No. Polygamy is about marriage and is often religiously or culturally determined; polyamory is about multiple love relationships with everyone’s consent, without any marriage involved.

“Polygamy always means one man with several wives.” Usually, but not by definition. Polyandry, where one woman has several husbands, falls under it just as much, though that form is rare.

“Polygamy is banned everywhere.” No. In many countries a form of polygamy is legal or customary. In the Netherlands and most Western countries it isn’t.

“Polygamy says something about how people date in the West.” Barely. Polygamy is a marriage institution from specific cultural and religious contexts. Anyone here who has multiple partners with everyone’s consent is doing polyamory or another form of ethical non-monogamy, not polygamy.

More reading on polygamy

Within this glossary, polygyny and polyandry go deeper into the two forms, and polyamory shows the difference from the modern, non-marital variant. Beyond this site, the encyclopedic overview gives the worldwide figures and the history.

Where this fits on this site

Polygamy itself isn’t a theme of this site; the rest of this list is about polyamory and other forms of ethical non-monogamy. Do you live in an open or poly relationship and are you looking for a discreet date outside your own circle? Then that can happen with me, calmly and without judgment. The conversation beforehand tells you how that goes.

Sources

• Polygamy. Wikipedia. Provides the definition of polygamy, the distinction between polygyny and polyandry, and the figures that of 1,231 societies 588 had frequent and 453 occasional polygyny, 186 were monogamous, and 4 had polyandry.
• Polygamie. Wikipedia (Dutch). Provides the Dutch legal situation: Book 1 article 33 of the Civil Code that one person can be married to only one other at a time, and article 237 of the Criminal Code that makes bigamy punishable by up to four years in prison, six in the case of concealment.
• Polyandry. Wikipedia. Provides that polyandry is a form of polygamy in which a woman has two or more husbands, and that the most common form is fraternal polyandry, in parts of Tibet, Nepal, and northern India.

Related terms

Polygamy is a marriage form with several partners. The terms below place it alongside the related ones.

• Polygyny. The form of polygamy where one man has several wives, by far the most common.
• Polyandry. The rare form where one woman has several husbands.
• Polyamory. The modern, egalitarian form of multiple love relationships, without marriage and with everyone’s consent.
• Monogamy. The opposite starting point: one partner at a time, the norm in the Netherlands.
• Ethical non-monogamy. The umbrella for relationship forms with more than one partner, with the consent of everyone involved.