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Revision as of 03:25, 17 August 2005

"Group marriage" is not called "True polygamy"

The article currently declares a false statement, saying that "group marriage" is sometimes called "true polygamy." Not only does the person who wrote that statement not not know the meaning of the polygamy, but they did not even Misplaced Pages:Cite sources.

"Group marriage" can not be called "true polygamy" because it is not even polygamy at all. That is because polygamy is only one of two things. It is either polygyny (one man with more than wife) or it is polyandry (one woman with more than one husband). Either way, it is always a relationship of one-gender to multiple-other-gender.

That's why other arrangements of more than one gender with mutiple others of the other gender is not polygamy, although it is rightly called "group marriage," and is one form of polyamory.

I just did a quick search: Yahoo, for example. The only webpages that call "group marriage" as "true polygamy" are this Misplaced Pages article and sites that copy the Misplaced Pages article directly.

Because this the article is not correct with this statement icnluded, it will ned to be edited. I will await a response here in TALK for about a week. If no one has anything to add or discuss on this, I will then remove that false statement.

Researcher 17:47, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Polygamy - From the ancient greek poly (many) and gamos (marriage). Literally, "Many Marriages" or "Married to Many". The base term does not indicate sex. Because of the neutrality of the original term, some persons refer to group marriage as "true polygamy", as it is more sex neutral than either polyandry or polygyny.

Citations:

However, I agree that the term "true polygamy" is confusing in an encyclopedic entry. In the nine pages of hits off of Altavista, I found many religious groups using it to refer to certain types of polygyny. I have removed the term from the article for the sake of clarity.

Dunkelza 23:10, 8 August 2005 (EDT)

By deleting true polygamy, the only reference to polygamy was deleted. I see a few options:

1. Mention that group marriage is a form of polygamy
2. Decide that it isn't a form of polygamy (as Researcher99 states), and state this as so
3. Leave the article as is, and let people come to their own conclusions

I don't like 3, which ignores the issue. I suspect that 1 is correct, the dictionary definition supports it, but is there a more solid reference? This discussion will reemerge soon in polygamy.Nereocystis 21:06, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Here's a reference to group marriage being called polygamy:

Emens, Elizabeth F., "Monogamy's Law: Compulsory Monogamy and Polyamorous Existence" (February 2004). U of Chicago, Public Law Working Paper No. 58, p. 21. http://ssrn.com/abstract=506242

It also mentions multiple partners of the same sex, which is excluded by the current definition of group marriage in this article. Of course, polygynandry also excludes group marriages consisting only of one gender. Here's a possible rewrite, though this allows polygyny and polyandry to be types of group marriage. Is this acceptable?

Group marriage or Circle Marriage is a form of polygamous marriage in which three or more people form a family unit, and all members of the marriage share parental responsibility for any children arising from the marriage. Heterosexual group marriage is sometimes called polygynandry, from a combination of the words polygyny and polyandry.

Nereocystis 22:21, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

I think that your rewrite works. Since group marriage is a form of polygamy, I'd go ahead and put it up. Dunkelza 11:21, 12 August 2005 (EDT)

I'll wait a little while for Researcher99 to respond. I know he disagrees with calling group marriage a form of polygamy. I also realize that with my rewrite, group marriage and polygamy are almost identical, with polygamy and polyandry being subsets of both. I had previously thought that group marriage was one type of polygamy, not including all of polygamy, but if the requirement of 2 of each gender is removed, a bigamous couple is engaged in a group marriage. Nereocystis 18:39, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

PolyGYNY and Polyandry. :) Polygamy is the sex-neutral term. That confusion in common parlance sparked the debate over "True Polygamy" in the first place. Some advocates of group marriage hold that it is the pure form of polygamy because it presents equal opportunity to both sexes. Even if some of the people in a group marriage are homosexual, the family could still contain both sexes, assuming there are some bisexuals in there. Basically, a group marriage must contain all one sex or at least two of each sex. Dunkelza 19:14, 12 August 2005 (EDT)

Hmm. There's a certain gender inequality which I don't quite like yet. Or maybe it's a sexual preference difference. I'm having trouble putting my finger on it, but I'll try. Let's pretend that intercourse, or sexual preference is what matters.

Imagine 2 men A and B, and two women Y and Z. A is bi, B is gay, Y and Z and straight. B, Y, and Z have sex only with A and not with each other. How is this different from a polygynous relationship? Polygynandry is fine if everyone is straight, but may fall apart if some are not straight. Nereocystis 23:58, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Let's save the gender issue for later, and just restore polygamous for now. Here's my current suggestion:

Group marriage or Circle Marriage is a form of polygamous marriage in which more than one man and more than one woman form a family unit, and all members of the marriage share parental responsibility for any children arising from the marriage. Group marriage is sometimes called polygynandry, from a combination of the words polygyny and polyandry.

Nereocystis 22:09, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I think that sounds fine. The whole issue of sex and marriage is fairly murky because of confusion around the meaning of the word "marriage". Indeed, the Greek term "gamos" was more specifically heterosexual because its meaning was more akin to "matrimony" in English, which is a specific religious rite. Given this uncertainty, I think we should stick with the general anthropological definition of polygamy, which includes group marriage.

Dunkelza 23:40, 13 August 2005 (EDT)

Why does Dunkelza have a user name that does not exist? Researcher 13:38, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

I think that Researcher99 misunderstands Dunkelza's status. As wikipedia says when you click on :

Misplaced Pages does not yet have a User page called Dunkelza.

That doesn't mean that the user name doesn't exist, only that the page doesn't exist, and users are not required to have user pages. If you click on "User contributions", you will get a list of Dunkelza's contributions, as you would for any user. Nereocystis 14:36, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

That's Polyamory, not Polygamy

None of the references that Dunkelza provided offer any valid verification of "group marriage" being legitimately called "true polygamy." All but the first citation are simply usenet or forum threads. Mere discussions on threads do not qualify as legitimate Misplaced Pages:Verifiability sources. The first cited source is a tiny page that does not even mention "group marriage." Plus, the closest comment the page there makes about "true polygamy" is actually disproving the idea of using that as a definition. It said, "I know of no documented social milieu which practiced "true" polygamy (multiple spouses of any gender).".

Also, the one citation that Nereocystis makes also does not have the words "polygamy" or "group marriage" on it at all. Actually, that article is about polyamory. It is true that "group marriage" is a subset of polyamory but it is not a subset of polygamy.

An easier way to understand this is by remembering who is called a "polygamist." In polygyny, the husband is called the "polygamist" but his wives are not - they are his "polygamous wives." In polyandry, the wife is called the "polygamist" but her husbands are not - they are her "polygamous husbands."

The reason why polygamy is a description of one-gender-to-many-of-other-gender is that it is based upon the relationship that the one-gender has with each of the other-gender. In polygyny, for example, the wives are not "married" to each other - they each have their marriage with the husband. The same for polyandry, the husbands are not "married" to each other - they each have their marriage with the wife.

The concept of "group marriage" explodes that concept into something it is not. It is definitely a form of polyamory but it is not possible to be a "form" of polygamy because it implies marriage between everyone in the group to everyone else in the group.

So, to use the re-write offered by Nereocystis, I would say that the word polygamous needs to be replaced with polyamorous and the last sentence needs to be removed. It would read as this:

Group marriage or Circle Marriage is a form of polyamorous marriage in which more than one man and more than one woman form a family unit, and all members of the marriage share parental responsibility for any children arising from the marriage.

Researcher 13:34, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Clearly you didn't read the entire 87 pages of Emens word by word, :). Sorry, I should have given a more specific reference. Look at p 21:

Frank's comment highlights a common problem of terminology. The term polygamy is often used to mean two different things: 1) marriage to more than one person, regardless of sex; and 2) the marriage of one man to more than one woman. As noted above,120 the latter--one man with multiple wives--is specifically called "polygyny." Polygyny is the opposite of "polyandry," one woman with multiple husbands.121 The elision of the two is exemplified, with some acknowledgement of the confusion, by the Oxford English Dictionary definition of "polygamy": "Marriage with several, or more than one, at once; plurality of spouses; the practice or custom according to which one man has several wives (distinctively called polygyny), or one woman several husbands (polyandry), at the same time. Most commonly used of the former."122 To avoid this confusion, the article uses the term "polygamy" to mean several spouses, regardless of sex. It is, however, significant that polygamy commonly refers to a man with many wives. I agree with Congressman Frank that this is one reason that people object to the idea of plural marriage. To try to supplement this perception, this article offers several examples of multi-party relationships that are not structured by institutionalized patriarchy.

Emens uses polygamy to allow multiple partners, regardless of sex, and uses the Oxford English Dictionary as one reference for this definition. We could allow a note that some people do not consider group marriage as polygamy, if there is a reference supporting this position. Nereocystis 17:31, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

The term "polyamorous" is not accurate because it assumes that all of the partners in the group marriage are "in love with" each other. While Nereocystis wants to make sure the article recognizes that not all group marriages are heterosexual, we can't forget that the term originated as a description of male-female relationships. In such a case, the marriage is simultaneously polygynous and polyandrous, hence the zoological term "polygynandry". The husbands need not feel "married" to each other, but only to their shared wives.

Furthermore, the use of said term is misleading, in that polygynous and polyandrous relationships are also considered to be polyamorous. The most commonly cited form of polyamorous relationship is a "triangle", "triad", "vee", or "troika", which is quite clearly one individual (the "hinge") connected to two mates. To be clear in our articles, the word polyamory should be used in articles about "love", while polygamy belongs in articles about "marriage".

While a few anthropologists are still using the unclear, pre-Boaz definitions, most are using the term "polygamy" as dichotomous with "monogamy". In this case, monogamy and polygamy are the two big categories into which other, more specific definitions of marriage are placed. Indeed, the use of group marriage as a separate category unto itself is usually only taught when talking about the early history of anthropology. In these historic instances, the term group marriage is usually associated with "savagery", a word that no self-respecting, modern anthropologist will apply to any culture.

1. http://www.mrdefine.com/polygamy
2. http://www.anthrogeeks.com/intro/archives/archive_2005-w11.php
3. http://www.csupomona.edu/~ddwills/courses/ant102/readings102/Study%20Guide%202.html
4. http://www.spjc.edu/se/courses/syllabus2/ANT2410.htm
5. http://www2.rz.hu-berlin.de/sexology/Reiss3/html/chcgl.htm

Dunkelza 23:24, 16 August 2005 (EDT)

"Polygynandry" is NOT even a word

The article currently also declares another false statement. It makes up a new word, saying that "group marriage" is sometimes called "polygynandry." I just looked up the word, and polygynandry does not exist. The person who added that word appears to have made up a word, and they did not even Misplaced Pages:Cite sources. I'll check back in about a week to see if anyone has more to add about this. At that time, if there is nothing more to discuss or explain, I'll make the correction. Researcher 17:53, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

--- Citations for Polygynandry: (I don't LIKE the word, but it is a technical term in zoology)

There were at least 10 pages of hits off Altavista. Dunkelza 23:10, 8 August 2005 (EDT)

I performed a BIOSIS search on ovid.com and found 31 journal references, reputable, I believe. Here are the first 10, some mentioning the word in the title, others not:

1. Vermette, Richard ; Fairbairn, Daphne J. . How well do mating frequency and duration predict paternity success in the polygynandrous water strider Aquarius remigis? Evolution. 56(9). September, 2002. 1808-1820.
2. Haydock, Joseph ; Koenig, Walter D. . Reproductive skew in the polygynandrous acorn woodpecker Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 99(10). May 14, 2002. 7178-7183.
3. Campbell, Veronique ; Fairbairn, Daphne J. . Prolonged copulation and the internal dynamics of sperm transfer in the water strider Aquarius remigis Canadian Journal of Zoology. 79(10). October, 2001. 1801-1812.
4. Winterbottom, M. ; Burke, T. ; Birkhead, T. R. . The phalloid organ, orgasm and sperm competition in a polygynandrous bird: The red-billed buffalo weaver (Bubalornis niger) Behavioral Ecology & Sociobiology. 50(5). October, 2001. 474-482.
5. Bishton, Glenn . Social structure, habitat use and breeding biology of hedgerow Dunnocks Prunella modularis Bird Study. 48(2). July, 2001. 188-193.
6. Jones, A. G. ; Avise, J. C. . Mating systems and sexual selection in male-pregnant pipefishes and seahorses: Insights from microsatellite-based studies of maternity Journal of Heredity. 92(2). March-April, 2001. 150-158.
7. Chiba, Akira ; Nakamura, Masahiko . Note on the morphology of the sperm storage tubules in the polygynandrous alpine accentor, Prunella collaris Journal of the Yamashina Institute for Ornithology. 32(2). 29 December, 2000. 73-79.
8. Sommer, Volker ; Reichard, Ulrich . Deconstructing monogamy: Thailand's gibbons at Khao Yai Folia Primatologica. 71(5). September-October, 2000. 362.
9. Briskie, James V. . Song variation and the structure of local song dialects in the polygynandrous Smith's Longspur Canadian Journal of Zoology. 77(10). Oct., 1999. 1587-1594.
10. Goldizen, Anne W. ; Buchan, Jason C. ; Putland, David A. ; Goldizen, Alan R. ; Krebs, Elizabeth A. . Patterns of mate-sharing in a population of Tasmanian Native Hens Gallinula mortierii Ibis. 142(1). Jan. , 2000. 40-47.