In both of these cases, the effect of these laws is to protect people from being married under false pretenses.

It even covers the occasional case of a man who sets up a second family with a second wife, keeping his dual marriage a secret from one or both of them. They also cover cases such as a man who breaks up with his wife, and without divorcing her, marries another woman. Note that these laws aren't limited to cases of traditional polygamy, where the spouses know about each other. Many countries have specific statutes outlawing bigamy, making any secondary marriage a crime. Strictly speaking, cohabitation involving three or more sexually-involved people does not count as polygamy unless the participants at least claim to be married.īigamy is marriage to two people at the same time a person doubly married is a bigamist. Another possible arrangement not thought to exist in reality, although occurring in science fiction (notably in Robert Heinlein's The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress), is the long-lived line marriage, in which deceased or departing spouses in the group are continually replaced by others, so that family property never becomes dispersed through inheritance. Group marriage, or circle marriage, may exist in a number of forms, such as where more than one man and more than one woman form a single family unit, and all members of the marriage share parental responsibility for any children arising from the marriage.

Polyandry was traditionally practiced among nomadic Tibetans, where it meant two poor brothers sharing a wife. In this context, the practice is intended to keep land (a precious resource in a populous country like India) from being split up amongst male heirs. Today it is almost exclusively observed in the Toda tribe of India, where it is sometimes the custom for several brothers to have one wife. Historically, all three practices have been found, but polygyny is by far the most common.Ī notable example of polyandry occurs in Hindu culture in the Mahabharata, where the Pandavas are married to one common wife, Draupadi. Polygamy exists in three specific forms, including polygyny (one man having multiple wives), polyandry (one woman having multiple husbands), or group marriage (some combination of polygyny and polyandry).

Ethnographic atlas codebook