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

In resourced-based polygyny, males compete for territories with the best resources, and then mate with females that enter the territory, drawn to its resource richness.

From Textbooks • Jun. 9, 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

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

A notable feature of their customs is that both polygyny and polyandry are permitted, this being the only instance of the latter practice so far observed among the tribes of the Philippines.

From Negritos of Zambales by Reed, William Allan