What is polygamy
The polygamy is a word that comes from Greece and if we translate it, the meaning will be “often married”. The polygamy has an interesting meaning where the marriage is done with more than just two partners as it happens at most societies.
In most countries out there the polygamy is not a practice that is tolerated and the laws are usually making it illegal. This word is usually referring to the type of marriages where there are two or more spouses, but in the vast majority it will refer to two wives or more.
At the same time there are also tons of cultures from all over the world that have absolutely no problem with accepting polygamy as a normal thing and this means that there are no laws to prevent men to have more than one wife or even when a woman has more than one husband.
The polygamy term can create a lot of confusion, especially since people confuse it with the bigamy term. The bigamy however will only refer to have two wives, while the polygamy refers to having two or even more and they all live in the same house.
Other terms that refer to this domain are polygyny – There in this situation a man will have many wives at the same time.
The term polyandry refers exactly to the same thing as the polygyny, except for the fact that the wives will have at the same time more husbands.
Group Marriages – Are yet another interesting term where there is one single family unit, but with many husbands and wives all at the same time.
About polygamy
In this article we are planning to offer you as much information as possible about polygamy. This term refers to a marriage that is going to have more than one partner. This practice has been criticized a lot by the modern society and culture and especially by Christianity. However at the same time there are many cultures and civilizations from all over the world that are practicing polygamy and there are no problems about it.
The polygamy has been present in the past for a very long time and almost each continent has had its own form of polygamy. Here in this article we are planning to offer you all the information you need about polygamy and the forms of polygamy that can be found in different cultures and civilizations.
Polygyny
Polygyny is a term that comes from the Greek "poly" which means many and "gyny" which means woman or wife. This term is connected to a type of marriage where a man is going to have more than two wives at the same time. There are currently many countries out there where this practice is illegal and the man that is doing it, is referred to as a bigamist, when he has two wives or as a polygamist.
This term can be sometimes confusing, but the truth is that it represents a totally different situation than the one where a man is going to have more different sexual partners outside his marriage. This means that all the other women who are usually called: concubine, casual sex partners, paramour, cohabitants even if they are married women, are going to be considered culturally secondary partners, but legally they are not.
One of the most common forms of polygamy is the polygyny. But at the same time there is also the polyandry where a woman is going to have more than one husbands at the same time. If we look back in time we can see that there are many cultures from all over the world that accepted in the past the polygyny in their society.
Polygamists
The polygamists are those people that are practicing polygamy. These people have most of the time a very controversial behaviour which is not being considered as normal by the modern cultures.
Practically the polygamists are those people that are married with more than two partners. The polygamists are a totally different type of people and they should never be confused with the people that are having an affair outside their marriages.
The polygamists are practicing polygamy in three different forms that can be encountered around the world in different cultures at different civilizations:
The Polygyny - is where a man is going to have more than one wife at the same time.
The Polyandry - is the exact same thing as polygyny, except for the fact that it refers to women. So this means that a woman is going to have multiple husbands and marriages at the same time.
And Group Marriages - is where a family is going to be made out of a multiple number of husbands and multiple wives.
There are currently many cultures and religions from all over the world where the polygamists are tolerated and therefore this is going to be a common practice there. But at the same time the Christianity and the modern society is currently not tolerating the polygamists.