Polygamy


Polygamy is the practice of marrying multiple spouses. When a man is married to more than one wife at the same time, it is called polygyny. When a woman is married to more than one husband at the same time, it is called polyandry. In contrast, in sociobiology and zoology, researchers use "polygamy" more broadly to refer to any form of multiple mating.
In contrast to polygamy, monogamy is marriage consisting of only two parties. Like "monogamy", the term "polygamy" is often used in a de facto sense, applied regardless of whether a state recognizes the relationship. In many countries, the law only recognises monogamous marriages, but adultery is not illegal, leading to a situation of de facto polygamy being allowed without legal recognition for non-official "spouses".
Worldwide, different societies variously encourage, accept or outlaw polygamy. In societies which allow or tolerate polygamy, polygyny is the accepted form in the vast majority of cases. According to the Ethnographic Atlas Codebook, of 1,231 societies noted from 1960 to 1980, 588 had frequent polygyny, 453 had occasional polygyny, 186 were monogamous, and 4 had polyandryalthough more recent research found some form of polyandry in 53 communities, which is more common than previously thought. In cultures which practice polygamy, its prevalence among that population often correlates with social class and socioeconomic status. Polygamy is most common in a region known as the "polygamy belt" in West Africa and Central Africa, with the countries estimated to have the highest polygamy prevalence in the world being Burkina Faso, Mali, Gambia, Niger and Nigeria.

Biological and social distinctions

The term "polygamy" may be referring to one of various relational types, depending upon context. Four overlapping definitions can be adapted from the work of Ulrich Reichard and others:
  • Marital polygamy occurs when an individual is married to more than one person. The other spouses may or may not be married to one another.
  • Social polygamy occurs when an individual has multiple partners that they live with, have sex with, and cooperate with in acquiring basic resources.
  • Sexual polygamy refers to individuals who have more than one sexual partner or who have sex partners outside of a primary relationship.
  • Genetic polygamy refers to sexual relationships that result in children who have genetic evidence of different paternity.
Biologists, biological anthropologists, and behavioral ecologists often use polygamy in the sense of a lack of sexual or genetic exclusivity. When cultural or social anthropologists and other social scientists use the term polygamy, the meaning is social or marital polygamy.
In contrast, marital monogamy may be distinguished between:
  1. classical monogamy, "a single relationship between people who marry as virgins, remain sexually exclusive their entire lives, and become celibate upon the death of the partner"
  2. serial monogamy, marriage with only one other person at a time, in contrast to bigamy or polygamy Some definitions of serial monogamy consider it to be polygamy, as it can result in evidence of genetic polygamy. It can also be considered polygamy for anthropological reasons.
Outside of the legal sphere, defining polygamy can be difficult because of differences in cultural assumptions regarding monogamy. Some societies believe that monogamy requires limiting sexual activity to a single partner for life. Others accept or endorse pre-marital sex prior to marriage. Some societies consider sex outside of marriage or "spouse swapping" to be socially acceptable. Some consider a relationship monogamous even if partners separate and move to a new monogamous relationship through death, divorce, or simple dissolution of the relationship, regardless of the length of the relationship. Anthropologists characterize human beings as "mildly polygynous" or "monogamous with polygynous tendencies." The average pre-historic man with modern descendants appears to have had children with between 1.5 women to 3.3 women, except in East Asia. While the forms of non-monogamy in prehistorical times is unknown, these rates could be consistent with a society that practices serial monogamy. Anthropological observations indicate that even when polygyny is accepted in the community, the majority of relationships in the society are monogamous in practice – while couples remain in the relationship, which may not be lifelong. Thus, in many historical communities, serial monogamy may have been the accepted practice rather than a lifelong monogamous bond. The genetic record indicates that monogamy increased within the last 5,000-10,000 years, a period associated with the development of human agriculture, non-communal land ownership, and inheritance.

Forms

Polygamy exists in three specific forms:

Incidence

Polygyny, the practice wherein a man has more than one wife at the same time, is by far the most common form of polygamy. Many Muslim-majority countries and some countries with sizable Muslim minorities accept polygyny to varying extents both legally and culturally. In several countries, such as India, the law only recognizes polygamous marriages for the Muslim population. Islamic law or sharia is a religious law forming part of the Islamic tradition which allows polygyny. It is derived from the religious precepts of Islam, particularly the Quran and the hadith. In Arabic, the term sharīʿah refers to God's immutable divine law and is contrasted with fiqh, which refers to its human scholarly interpretations.
Polygyny is more widespread in Africa than on any other continent, especially in West Africa, and some scholars see the slave trade's impact on the male-to-female sex ratio as a key factor in the emergence and fortification of polygynous practices in regions of Africa. In the region of sub-Saharan Africa, polygyny is common and deeply rooted in the culture, with 11% of the population of sub-Saharan Africa living in such marriages. According to Pew, polygamy is widespread in a cluster of countries in West and Central Africa, including Burkina Faso,, Mali and Nigeria.
Anthropologist Jack Goody's comparative study of marriage around the world utilizing the Ethnographic Atlas demonstrated a historical correlation between the practice of extensive shifting horticulture and polygamy in the majority of sub-Saharan African societies. Drawing on the work of Ester Boserup, Goody notes that the sexual division of labour varies between the male-dominated intensive plough-agriculture common in Eurasia and the extensive shifting horticulture found in sub-Saharan Africa. In some of the sparsely populated regions where shifting cultivation takes place in Africa, women do much of the work. This favours polygamous marriages in which men seek to monopolize the production of women "who are valued both as workers and as child bearers". Goody however, observes that the correlation is imperfect and varied, and also discusses more traditionally male-dominated though relatively extensive farming systems such as those traditionally common in much of West Africa, especially in the West African savanna, where more agricultural work is done by men, and where polygyny is desired by men more for the generation of male offspring whose labor is valued.
Anthropologists Douglas R. White and Michael L. Burton discuss and support Jack Goody's observation regarding African male farming systems in "Causes of Polygyny: Ecology, Economy, Kinship, and Warfare" where these authors note:

An analysis by James Fenske found that child mortality and ecologically related economic shocks had a significant association with rates of polygamy in sub-Saharan Africa, rather than female agricultural contributions, finding that polygyny rates decrease significantly with child mortality rates.

Types of polygyny

Polygynous marriages fall into two types: sororal polygyny, in which the co-wives are sisters, and non-sororal, where the co-wives are not related. Polygyny offers husbands the benefit of allowing them to have more children, may provide them with a larger number of productive workers, and allows them to establish politically useful ties with a greater number of kin groups. Senior wives can benefit as well when the addition of junior wives to the family lightens their workload. Wives', especially senior wives', status in a community can increase through the addition of other wives, who add to the family's prosperity or symbolize conspicuous consumption. For such reasons, senior wives sometimes work hard or contribute from their own resources to enable their husbands to accumulate the bride price for an extra wife.
Polygyny may also result from the practice of levirate marriage. In such cases, the deceased man's heir may inherit his assets and wife; or, more usually, his brothers may marry the widow. This provides support for the widow and her children and maintains the tie between the husbands' and wives' kin groups. The sororate resembles the levirate, in that a widower must marry the sister of his dead wife. The family of the late wife, in other words, must provide a replacement for her, thus maintaining the marriage alliance. Both levirate and sororate may result in a man having multiple wives.
In monogamous societies, wealthy and powerful men may establish enduring relationships with, and established separate household for, multiple female partners, aside from their legitimate wives; a practice accepted in Imperial China up until the Qing dynasty. This constitutes a form of de facto polygyny referred to as concubinage.