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

Adult relationships vary in form across societies and include not only the type most common around the world today — heterosexual monogamy — but also same-sex marriage, nonmarital unions, polyamory, polygyny and polyandry.

From Washington Post • Jun. 17, 2022

A third type of polygyny is a lek system.

From Textbooks • Jun. 9, 2022

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

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