polygyny
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
While polygyny - the marriage of a man to several women - is allowed in South Africa, such relationships are usually registered as customary marriages and are not celebrated in church.
From BBC ● May 3, 2025
To compensate for the disappearance of so many young men, who were the laborers most preferred by plantation owners, many African ethnic groups adopted polygyny, allowing men to take multiple wives.
From Textbooks ● Dec. 14, 2022
Adult relationships vary in form across societies and include not only the type most common around the world today — heterosexual monogamy — but also same-sex marriage, nonmarital unions, polyamory, polygyny and polyandry.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 17, 2022
Coontz points to past Native American societies that occasionally engaged in what’s known as sororal polygyny, in which a man married to one woman might also marry her sister, perhaps after the sister’s husband died.
From Slate ● Jan. 30, 2012
But it does not follow that polyandry and a matriarchal state always and necessarily preceded polygyny and a patriarchal state.
From Man, Past and Present by Alfred Court Haddon
