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.

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

While the tomb reveals evidence of polygyny - men having children with multiple women - it also shows that polyandry was also widespread: women having children with multiple men.

From BBC • Dec. 23, 2021

That’s why some 16 million men today can trace their ancestry back to Genghis Khan, a tyrant who pushed polygyny to its physical limits.

From Washington Post • Apr. 15, 2015

These estimates, they wrote, are still within the range you'd find for societies described as "monogamous or serially monogamous, although they also overlap with those characterizing polygyny."

From Slate • Oct. 9, 2012

Wherever it has survived as a system, polygyny has hindered progress, and wherever it exists in the midst of monogamy it tends to break down civilization.

From Society Its Origin and Development by Rowe, Henry Kalloch