Polygamy - Forms of Polygamy

Forms of Polygamy

Polygamy exists in three specific forms: polygyny - wherein a man has multiple simultaneous wives; polyandry - wherein a woman has multiple simultaneous husbands; or group marriage - wherein the family unit consists of multiple husbands and multiple wives.

Historically, all three practices have been found, but polygyny is by far the most common. Confusion arises when the broad term "polygamy" is used when a specific form of polygamy is being referred to. Additionally, different countries may or may not include all forms in their Polygamy laws.

Read more about this topic:  Polygamy

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