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

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

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

Kohler, on the other hand155, speaks of group marriage as existing among the Omahas, a patrilineal tribe, be it remarked; but means by that no more than adelphic polygyny.

From Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia by Thomas, Northcote Whitridge