Polygyny is a form of marriage in which one man is simultaneously wed to two or more women, making it the most common form of polygamy worldwide. It is documented across a broad 'polygamy belt' stretching through West and Central Africa, where it remains most prevalent today, and appears historically in societies from ancient Mesopotamia to Southeast Asia. Anthropologists have linked its distribution to economic and kinship factors: Jack Goody correlated it with extensive shifting cultivation, while Ester Boserup tied it to the sexual division of agricultural labor. In stratified premodern societies it often took the form of 'resource polygyny,' where wealthy or powerful men kept a principal wife alongside several secondary wives as a marker and mechanism of status. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Facts
Descent RuleSourced to the subject's own accountMost strongly associated with patrilineal descent: multiple wives produce children unambiguously attributed to the husband's line, consolidating male control over lineage, inheritance and succession; polygyny also correlates with patrilocal residence. 1 Typical RegionSourced to the subject's own accountWest and Central Africa ("the polygamy belt"), especially Burkina Faso, Mali and the Gambia (highest documented prevalence, 2019 data); also historically documented in parts of the Middle East, South/Southeast Asia, and among some Native American and Pacific societies. 1 Descent Rule
Descent Rule (category)Sourced to the subject's own account Descent Rule (category)Sourced to the subject's own account Connections
Associated With
Bridewealth payments commonly accompany polygynous marriage arrangements in the same societies where both customs are documented.
Source Wikipedia: Bride Price
Ethnographic Atlas data records polygyny, occasional or frequent, as the most common marriage form among the 1,231 societies surveyed, a variant form within the institution of marriage rather than a separate institution.
Source Wikipedia: Marriage
Held Differently
Both are recognized marriage systems distinguished by spouse count; monogamy permits exactly one spouse at a time where polygyny permits a husband multiple wives.
Both are recognized forms of plural marriage (polygamy); polyandry is the far rarer variant, with one wife and multiple husbands rather than one husband and multiple wives.
Source Wikipedia: Polyandry
In Rule Category
Studied By
Source Wikipedia: Polygyny
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Polygyny
Wikipedia- Incidence and Premodern era sections
- synthesized from Incidence section and cross-cultural kinship literature on the patrilineal/patrilocal correlation
- Incidence section: Burkina Faso (36%), Mali (34%), Gambia (30%)
Studied By: Jack Goody, Article body sentence quoted
Anthropologist Jack Goody's comparative study of marriage around the world, using the Ethnographic Atlas, demonstrated a historical correlation between the practice of extensive shifting cultivation and polygyny in many Sub-Saharan African societies.
View the Source Wikipedia: Bride Price
WikipediaAssociated With: Bridewealth, regional documentation, sub-Saharan AfricaView the Source Wikipedia: Marriage
Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.