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Alisson Aleman
Anthropology 134
Thr. 10:00-11:00 am
14 September 2018
Polygamous Marriages
Polygamy is a type of marriage in which one of its members is married at the same time
with more than one partner but the partners are not married to each other. Among some examples
of polygamous societies are the Islamic nations, where the law establishes that polygamous
marriage can only exist on the condition of the acceptance of a man's co-wives. Polygamy is the
anthropological term, which can be either polygyny, a man with multiple women, or polyandry, a
woman with multiple males. Historically, both practices have been found, but polygyny seems
much more frequent than polyandry.
I believe that everyone has the right to be in any type of relationship they want weather
that means to have one or more partners. Personally, I wouldn’t practice it just because it goes
against my morals. It would be hard for me to invest my feelings towards more than one person.
I feel that if I find the one, why should I have some else in way from obtaining that one-one
chemistry. It would simply just not be fair. Polygamy was practiced and accepted in the old
centuries. In this modern era, in most of the countries it’s against the law and the religion for
people to practice it. Also, at this modern era I feel like having a polygamy marriage wouldn’t
necessarily work. Having more than one partners might bring more problems that the husband or
wife have to think about. It's not only about how you have to share your love and attention
equally, or how you have to make sure you well finance enough to feed your spouse and your
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children , but how do you keep connected to all your family member. Overall, as for me a
healthy relationship vary as much as the people in them. As long as there is consent and good
communication people can do as they please.
The practice of polygamy has existed for decades, but although it’s not practice as it used
to, it hasn’t been forgotten. I believed that in many of this countries where polygamy is practiced
is due to a low number of men and a high number of women. Since there is not enough husbands
for each women, they must be in a polygamy relation and share him with other women. This can
happen vice versa with women having more than one husband. Also, some practice this type of
marriage because it has been a tradition with their religion or beliefs. All though many religions
might not support polygamy, years ago polygamy was existed in every religion.
In the article 'Half a good man is better than none at all' by Mira Katbamna, she
explains why some people in Russia and Asia have decided to practice polygamy. Her reason for
the practice are very similar to the ones I mentioned previously. Just like I mentioned, the article
also states that many of these polygamy marriages happen due to the low population of men
compared to the population of women. According to anthropologist, Caroline Humphrey, in
Russia “ there are 9 million fewer men than women”. Based on this, polygamy marriages where
men are marrying more than one women, helps to prevent women from feeling lonely. Not do
they only have some to support them economically but also emotionally. The one thing that
really surprised me, was when the article mentioned that women were the one that were
supporting polygamy to be legalized. The article basically states the a polygamous marriage
favors women more than men. believed that many of these women in polygamy marriages were
just there because that was their only option or they were forced by their culture, but the fact that
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women are the ones who are coming up-front in support to polygamy took me by surprise. At the
end of the day, people are going to do as they please, whether that means to never get marry or to
have more than one spouse. I still don’t think that I will ever experience this culture first hand,
but I have a better understanding of those who do.
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