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{{Short description|Three or more adults in a partnership}}
]
{{distinguish|collective wedding}}
'''Group marriage''' or '''Circle Marriage''' is a form of ] in which more than one man and more than one woman form a ] unit, and all members of the marriage share ]al responsibility for any children arising from the marriage. Group marriage is sometimes called "true ]" or '''polygynandry''', from a combination of the words ] and ].
{{More citations needed|date = January 2015}}
{{Close relationships |types}}
{{Polyamory sidebar|relationships}}
{{Anthropology of kinship}}


'''Group marriage''' or '''conjoint marriage''' is a ] arrangement where three or more adults enter into sexual, affective, romantic, or otherwise intimate short- or long-term partnerships, and share in any combination of finances, residences, care or kin work. Group marriage is considered a form of ].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Engel|first=F.|title=The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State|publisher=Penguin Classics|year=2010|location=London}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Morgan|first=Lewis|title=Systems of consanguinity and affinity of the human family|publisher=Smithsonian|year=1871|location=Washington}}</ref> While academic usage has traditionally treated group marriage as a marital arrangement, more recent usage has expanded the concept to allow for the inclusion of non-conjugal unions. Colloquial usage of group marriage has also been associated with ] and polyamorous families.
Group marriage is judged by some experts to be rare in traditional societies. Others find this judgement to be unwarranted, since the modern understanding of such societies is less than perfect. Many traditional societies have been nearly or totally destroyed by ] and other forces. Among the cultures listed in ]'s '']'', only the ] people of ] practice group marriage as a socially accepted form of marriage, and even among them, it is not the predominant form of marriage.


==Classification==
Group marriage occasionally occurred in ] societies founded in the 19th and 20th centuries. An exceptionally long-lived example was the ] founded by the ] minister ] in 1848. Noyes taught that he and his followers had undergone ]; that is, it was impossible for them to ], and that for the sanctified, marriage (along with private property) was abolished as an expression of jealousy and exclusiveness. The Oneida commune practiced sexual communalism and shared parental responsibilities, and in effect functioned as a large group marriage until sometime in the period 1879-1881. ] Commune practiced group marriage in San Francisco from 1971 to 1991.
Depending on the sexual orientations of the individuals involved, all adults in the group marriage may be sexual partners of all others with whom they are compatible. For instance, if all members are ], all the women may have sexual relationships with all the men. If members are ] or ], they may have evolved sexual relationships with either sex.{{citation needed|date=February 2018}}


Group marriage implies a strong commitment to be "]" by having sex only within the group and intending to remain together for an extended period. The group may be open to taking on new partners, but only if all members of the family agree to accept the new person as a partner. The new person then moves into the household and becomes an equal member of the family.{{citation needed|date=February 2018}}
Group marriage has been a theme in some works of ]- especially the later works of ]'s ], such as '']'' and '']''. Both of these books describe a ''line marriage'' (see below). Interest in, and practice of, ] is well-known in modern ].


The most common form of group marriage appears to be a ] of two women and one man, or less often two men and one woman.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.cat-and-dragon.com/stef/poly/Labriola/open.html |title=Models of Open Relationships by Kathy Labriola |website=Cat-and-dragon.com |access-date=2015-12-22}}</ref>{{better source needed|date=February 2018}}
It is difficult to estimate the number of people who actually practice group marriage in modern societies, as this form of marriage is not officially recognized in any jurisdiction, and illegal in many; however, it seems likely that its practice is limited to relatively small numbers of people. However, with the legalization of ] in some parts of the ] and ], some members of the ] movement are talking about a reform movement to allow group marriage.


==Legal aspects==
==Variations in Group Marriage==
{{more citations needed section|date=September 2015}}
{{see also|Legal status of polygamy}}
In most countries, it is not illegal for three or more people to form and share a sexual relationship (subject sometimes to laws against ]), though such relational forms risk running afoul of state or local ordinances banning ]. No Western country permits statutory marriage between more than two people. Nor do they give strong and equal legal protection (e.g., of rights relating to children) to non-married partners — the legal regime is not comparable to that applied to married couples. Individuals involved in ] relationships are considered by the law to be no different from people who live together or ] under other circumstances.


==Non-European cultures==
'''Line Marriage''' is a form of ''group marriage'' in which the family unit continues to add new spouses of both sexes over time so that the marriage does not end. ] described line families in detail in ] and may be the format of ]'s family in the latter parts of ]. Heinlein's characters argue that the line family creates economic continuity and parental stability in an unpredictable, dangerous environment. In the ''Mistress'', Manuel's line marriage is said to be over one hundred years old. The family is portrayed as being economically comfortable because the improvements and investments made by previous spouses compounded, rather than being lost between generations. Heinlein also makes a point of telling the reader that this family is racially diverse.
*Polygyny is most common in a region known as the "polygamy belt" in ] and ], with the countries estimated to have the highest polygamy prevalence in the world being ], ], ], ] and ].<ref name="pewresearch.org">{{cite web |last1=Kramer |first1=Stephanie |title=Polygamy is rare around the world and mostly confined to a few regions |url=https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/12/07/polygamy-is-rare-around-the-world-and-mostly-confined-to-a-few-regions/ |website=Pew Research Center |date=December 7, 2020}}</ref>
*Among the ]ans, the relationship of ''punalua'' involved "the fact that two or more brothers with their wives, or two or more sisters with their husbands, were inclined to possess each other in common".<ref>Westermarck 1922, Part III, p. 240</ref> ] in ''The History of Mankind'' reported in 1896 that in Hawaii a kind of incipient polyandry arose by the addition to the marriage establishment of a ], known as Punalua.<ref>{{cite book|author=Ratzel, Friedrich|title=The History of Mankind|page=277|location=London|publisher=MacMillan Press|date=1896|url=http://www.inquirewithin.biz/history/american_pacific/oceania/position-women.htm|access-date=11 April 2010|archive-date=7 January 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190107051120/http://www.inquirewithin.biz/history/american_pacific/oceania/position-women.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref>
*In some parts of ], there are "sexual relations between a group of men formed by the husband's brothers and a group of women formed by the wife's sisters".<ref>Westermarck 1922, Part III, p. 241</ref>
*Women of the ] community, a caste in ], ], used to practice polyandry.<ref name="Mathew">{{cite web |last=Mathew |first=Biju |title=Nair Polyandry |website=Kerala |url=http://www.kerala.cc/keralahistory/index14.htm |access-date=2018-06-18 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180726011905/http://www.kerala.cc/keralahistory/index14.htm |archive-date=2018-07-26 |url-status=dead }}</ref>
*], who live on the isolated ] plateau of Southern ] practiced ] for centuries, but no longer do so. Adelphic polyandry occurs when brothers share the same wife or wives. Such arrangements have been common in Himalayan tribes until recently.<ref>{{cite news |last=Polgreen |first=Lydia |date=16 July 2010 |title=One Bride for 2 Brothers: A Custom Fades in India |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/17/world/asia/17polyandry.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 |newspaper=The New York Times |location=Malang, India }}</ref>
* In ], ] practiced ] in the past, but no longer it is common to do so. The main motive behind this is to protect the wealth undivided. If there were seven or fewer brothers in a family, younger brothers get access to the eldest brother's wife. For families with more than seven brothers, the eighth brother will marry a new bride. Younger brothers get access to the eighth brother's wife, but not the elder brothers.<ref>සේනාරත්න,පී.ඇම්.ශ්‍රී ලංකා‍‍වේ විවාහ චාරිත්‍ර,සීමාසහිත ඇම්.ඩී.ගුණසේන සහ සමාගම,කොළඹ, 1999.</ref>
*Couple-to-couple marriages were made between the Alaskan ] until the early twentieth century when Christian missionaries suppressed the practice. Group marriage was not a standard of Yup'ik social order but rather a voluntary romantic arrangement between established couples.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Gods of the Flesh: A Skeptic's Journey Through Sex, Politics, and Religion|last=Morrow|first=Israel|year=2019|isbn=9780578438290}}</ref>

The following instances are cited in Thomas 1906.<ref>{{cite book|url=http://infomotions.com/etexts/gutenberg/dirs/1/7/4/0/17404/17404.htm|author=Northcote W. Thomas|title=Kinship Organizations and Group Marriage in Australia|location=Cambridge|publisher=]|date=1906|access-date=2009-11-05|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111028011416/http://infomotions.com/etexts/gutenberg/dirs/1/7/4/0/17404/17404.htm|archive-date=2011-10-28|url-status=dead}}</ref>
*In North America there is "group marriage as existing among the Omahas ... adelphic polygyny."
*Among the Dieri of Australia exist forms of spouse-sharing known as ''pirrauru'', in two categories "according to whether or not the man has or has not a ''tippa-malku'' wife. In the first case it is, taken in combination with the ''tippa-malku'' marriage, a case of bilateral dissimilar adelphic (M. and F.) polygamy. In the latter case it is dissimilar adelphic (tribal) polyandry". The ''pirrauru'' "relation arises through the exchange by brothers of their wives".
*Among the Kurnandaburi of Australia, "a group of men who are own or tribal brothers are united ... in group marriage".
*Among the Wakelbura of Australia, there is "adelphic polyandry."
*Among the Kurnai of Australia, "unmarried men have access to their brothers' wives."

== In modern U.S. practices ==
Group marriage occasionally occurred in ] societies founded in the 19th and 20th centuries.

A long-lived example was the ] founded by ] in 1848. Noyes taught that he and his followers, having reached 200 in number, had thus undergone ]; that is, it was impossible for them to ], and that for the sanctified, marriage (along with private property) was abolished as an expression of jealousy and exclusiveness. The Oneida commune lived together as a single large group and shared parental responsibilities. Any given male-female combination in the group was free to have sex, usually upon the man's asking the woman, and this was the common practice for many years. The group began to falter about 1879–1881, eventually disbanding after Noyes fled arrest. Several dozen pairs of Oneidans quickly married in traditional fashion.

The ] practiced group marriage in San Francisco from 1971 to 1991, calling their version ].

It is difficult to estimate the number of people who actually practice group marriage in modern societies, as such a form of marriage is not officially recognized or permitted in any jurisdiction in the U.S., and '']'' illegal in many. It is also not always visible when people sharing a residence consider themselves privately to be a group marriage.

== Portrayal in media ==
Group marriage appears in some of the novels of ] such as '']'' (1961), '']'' (1966), '']'' (1973), and '']'' (1982). ''Stranger in a Strange Land'' describes a communal group much like the ].{{citation needed|date=February 2018}} Heinlein created specific types of group marriages for ''The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress'' (line marriage) and ''Friday'' (S-groups).

In several of her ] stories (the cycle began in 1964) ] describes a type of four-person marriage known as a sedoretu, practiced on the planet O. In this arrangement, two men and two women are married to each other, but each member of the marriage has a sexual relationship only with one male and one female spouse.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Birthday of the World and Other Stories|last=Le Guin|first=Ursula|publisher=HarperCollins|year=2002}}</ref>

'']'' is a 1968 novel by ] that tells the story of two middle-class, suburban California couples who adopt a relationship structure of polyfidelity to deal with their multiple infidelities, as a rationalistic alternative to divorce. In the book, the solution to the couples' problems with adultery and the impregnation of one couple's wife by the other couple's husband is to commit to a group marriage to raise their five children in a home compound in which the husbands rotate among the wives.

] and his legal wife, at the time, Joan Constantine, researched and practiced group marriage in the 1970s. They created the Family Tree organization to promote healthy non-monogamous families, and collaboratively authored a book on the subject in 1974, ''Group Marriage: A Study of Contemporary Multilateral Marriage'' (Collier Books, 1974).<ref>Constantine, Larry and Joan (1974). Group Marriage: A Study of Contemporary Multilateral Marriage. Collier Books. {{ISBN|978-0020759102}}.</ref>

In ] book '']'' (1999) the protagonist is part of a group marriage with multiple men and women involved.

In the 2010 television show '']'', several main characters are portrayed as being in a ]-style marriage consisting of multiple men and women, with each member being equal socially and legally.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://io9.gizmodo.com/is-caprica-the-big-love-of-science-fiction-5476787 |title=Is Caprica the Big Love Of Science Fiction? |last=Newitz |first=Annalee |date=February 22, 2010 |access-date= March 15, 2021}}</ref> Such marriages co-exist along with monogamous marriages in the show's civilization. When asked about this aspect of the series, co-creator ] said "In terms of polygamy, it's usually framed in a "'']''" context – it's one man with many wives. I thought there was something even more intriguing about a true group marriage where all of the partners were married to one another. They have this much bigger definition of what a marriage was and I thought it was a fascinating cultural idea ...".<ref>{{cite web |url= https://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2010/02/caprica-ron-moore.html |title='Caprica': A chat with Ron Moore about the sci-fi soap opera |last=Phillips |first=Jevon |date= February 6, 2010 |work= ] |access-date= March 15, 2021}}</ref>

The fourth episode of the fourth season of the CBS television series, ], an American ] television series that presents a contemporary update of ] character ], has a focus on group marriages. In the episode ''All My Exes Live in Essex'', the victim of Sherlock Holmes's latest case was a participant in a group marriage with two men, and was once in another group marriage with five other people.

In the novel series '']'', by ], which began in 2011, a number of different group marriages are portrayed, such as one with main protagonist James Holden's eight parents. Their marriage consists of one straight couple, one gay couple, and one polyamorous group of four. Their octet primarily exists to exploit a loophole in tax code allowing them to own twenty-two acres of farmland.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Leviathan Wakes|last=Corey|first=James|publisher=Orbit Books|year=2011}}</ref> Group marriages are also described as common on Mars<ref>{{Cite book|title=Cibola Burn|last=Corey|first=James|publisher=Orbit Books|year=2014}}</ref> and in the Asteroid Belt.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Nemisis Games|last=Corey|first=James|publisher=Orbit Books|year=2015}}</ref>

In the novel '']'' by ], one of the POV characters mentions a couple of non-traditional marriages, including three men, and one man with two women. These are off-handed mentions although they are an acknowledged part of the book's universe, with the existence of non-traditional marriage practices having been mentioned in earlier books of the '']''.{{citation needed|date=March 2022}}

==See also==
* ]
* ]
* '']'', a novel by ]
* ]
* ]

== References ==
{{reflist}}

==Bibliography==
* {{cite book
| author = Constantine, Larry and Joan
| title = Group Marriage: A Study of Contemporary Multilateral Marriage
| url = https://archive.org/details/groupmarraige0000unse
| url-access = registration
| publisher = Collier Books
| year = 1974
| isbn = 978-0020759102
}}
* {{cite book
| last = Dillard
| first = J.M.
| author-link = Jeanne Kalogridis
| title = The Lost Years
| url = https://archive.org/details/lostyears00dill
| url-access = registration
| publisher=Pocket Books
| year = 1990
| isbn = 978-0-6717-0795-8
| pages = 440
}}
* {{cite journal
| author=Emens, Elizabeth F.
| author-link = Elizabeth F. Emens
| title=Monogamy's Law: Compulsory Monogamy and Polyamorous Existence
| journal=New York University Review of Law & Social Change
| volume = 29
| issue = 2
| year=2004
|page=277
}}
* {{cite book
| last = Heinlein
| first = Robert
| author-link = Robert A. Heinlein
| title = ]
| publisher=Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.
| year = 1996
| isbn = 978-0-3128-6176-6
}}
* {{cite book
| last = Murdock
| first = George P.
| author-link = George Murdock
| title = Social Structure
| url = https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.52407
| location= New York | publisher=The MacMillan Company
| year = 1949
| isbn = 0-02-922290-7
}}
* Murdock, George P. , derived from ''Ethnographic Atlas''
* {{cite book
| last = Westermarck
| first = Edward
| author-link = Edvard Westermarck
| title = ]
| publisher = Allerton Book Company
| location = New York
| year = 1922
}}

{{Close plural relationships}}
{{Family}}
{{Types of marriages|state=autocollapse}}


] ]
] ]

Latest revision as of 20:09, 28 May 2024

Three or more adults in a partnership Not to be confused with collective wedding.
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
Find sources: "Group marriage" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (January 2015) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Relationships
(Outline)
Types
Genetic or adoptive
By marriage
Partner(s)
Intimate and sexual
Activities
Endings
Emotions and feelings
Practices
Abuse
Part of a series on
Non-monogamy
and polyamory
Relationships
Sexual practices
Terms and values
Related topics
Part of a series on the
Anthropology of kinship
Basic concepts
Descent
Linealities
Household forms and residence
Terminology
By group
Case studies
Feminist
Sexuality
Major theorists
Related articles
Social anthropology
Cultural anthropology

Group marriage or conjoint marriage is a marital arrangement where three or more adults enter into sexual, affective, romantic, or otherwise intimate short- or long-term partnerships, and share in any combination of finances, residences, care or kin work. Group marriage is considered a form of polygamy. While academic usage has traditionally treated group marriage as a marital arrangement, more recent usage has expanded the concept to allow for the inclusion of non-conjugal unions. Colloquial usage of group marriage has also been associated with polyamory and polyamorous families.

Classification

Depending on the sexual orientations of the individuals involved, all adults in the group marriage may be sexual partners of all others with whom they are compatible. For instance, if all members are heterosexual, all the women may have sexual relationships with all the men. If members are bisexual or pansexual, they may have evolved sexual relationships with either sex.

Group marriage implies a strong commitment to be "faithful" by having sex only within the group and intending to remain together for an extended period. The group may be open to taking on new partners, but only if all members of the family agree to accept the new person as a partner. The new person then moves into the household and becomes an equal member of the family.

The most common form of group marriage appears to be a triad of two women and one man, or less often two men and one woman.

Legal aspects

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2015) (Learn how and when to remove this message)
See also: Legal status of polygamy

In most countries, it is not illegal for three or more people to form and share a sexual relationship (subject sometimes to laws against homosexuality), though such relational forms risk running afoul of state or local ordinances banning unmarried cohabitation. No Western country permits statutory marriage between more than two people. Nor do they give strong and equal legal protection (e.g., of rights relating to children) to non-married partners — the legal regime is not comparable to that applied to married couples. Individuals involved in polyamorous relationships are considered by the law to be no different from people who live together or date under other circumstances.

Non-European cultures

  • Polygyny is most common in a region known as the "polygamy belt" in West Africa and Central Africa, with the countries estimated to have the highest polygamy prevalence in the world being Burkina Faso, Mali, Gambia, Niger and Nigeria.
  • Among the Ancient Hawaiians, the relationship of punalua involved "the fact that two or more brothers with their wives, or two or more sisters with their husbands, were inclined to possess each other in common". Friedrich Ratzel in The History of Mankind reported in 1896 that in Hawaii a kind of incipient polyandry arose by the addition to the marriage establishment of a cicisbeo, known as Punalua.
  • In some parts of Melanesia, there are "sexual relations between a group of men formed by the husband's brothers and a group of women formed by the wife's sisters".
  • Women of the Nair community, a caste in Kerala, India, used to practice polyandry.
  • Toda people, who live on the isolated Nilgiri plateau of Southern India practiced adelphic polyandry for centuries, but no longer do so. Adelphic polyandry occurs when brothers share the same wife or wives. Such arrangements have been common in Himalayan tribes until recently.
  • In Sri Lanka, Sinhalese people practiced adelphic polyandry in the past, but no longer it is common to do so. The main motive behind this is to protect the wealth undivided. If there were seven or fewer brothers in a family, younger brothers get access to the eldest brother's wife. For families with more than seven brothers, the eighth brother will marry a new bride. Younger brothers get access to the eighth brother's wife, but not the elder brothers.
  • Couple-to-couple marriages were made between the Alaskan Yup'ik until the early twentieth century when Christian missionaries suppressed the practice. Group marriage was not a standard of Yup'ik social order but rather a voluntary romantic arrangement between established couples.

The following instances are cited in Thomas 1906.

  • In North America there is "group marriage as existing among the Omahas ... adelphic polygyny."
  • Among the Dieri of Australia exist forms of spouse-sharing known as pirrauru, in two categories "according to whether or not the man has or has not a tippa-malku wife. In the first case it is, taken in combination with the tippa-malku marriage, a case of bilateral dissimilar adelphic (M. and F.) polygamy. In the latter case it is dissimilar adelphic (tribal) polyandry". The pirrauru "relation arises through the exchange by brothers of their wives".
  • Among the Kurnandaburi of Australia, "a group of men who are own or tribal brothers are united ... in group marriage".
  • Among the Wakelbura of Australia, there is "adelphic polyandry."
  • Among the Kurnai of Australia, "unmarried men have access to their brothers' wives."

In modern U.S. practices

Group marriage occasionally occurred in communal societies founded in the 19th and 20th centuries.

A long-lived example was the Oneida Community founded by John Humphrey Noyes in 1848. Noyes taught that he and his followers, having reached 200 in number, had thus undergone sanctification; that is, it was impossible for them to sin, and that for the sanctified, marriage (along with private property) was abolished as an expression of jealousy and exclusiveness. The Oneida commune lived together as a single large group and shared parental responsibilities. Any given male-female combination in the group was free to have sex, usually upon the man's asking the woman, and this was the common practice for many years. The group began to falter about 1879–1881, eventually disbanding after Noyes fled arrest. Several dozen pairs of Oneidans quickly married in traditional fashion.

The Kerista Commune practiced group marriage in San Francisco from 1971 to 1991, calling their version polyfidelity.

It is difficult to estimate the number of people who actually practice group marriage in modern societies, as such a form of marriage is not officially recognized or permitted in any jurisdiction in the U.S., and de jure illegal in many. It is also not always visible when people sharing a residence consider themselves privately to be a group marriage.

Portrayal in media

Group marriage appears in some of the novels of Robert A. Heinlein such as Stranger in a Strange Land (1961), The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (1966), Time Enough for Love (1973), and Friday (1982). Stranger in a Strange Land describes a communal group much like the Oneida Society. Heinlein created specific types of group marriages for The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (line marriage) and Friday (S-groups).

In several of her Hainish Cycle stories (the cycle began in 1964) Ursula Le Guin describes a type of four-person marriage known as a sedoretu, practiced on the planet O. In this arrangement, two men and two women are married to each other, but each member of the marriage has a sexual relationship only with one male and one female spouse.

Proposition 31 is a 1968 novel by Robert Rimmer that tells the story of two middle-class, suburban California couples who adopt a relationship structure of polyfidelity to deal with their multiple infidelities, as a rationalistic alternative to divorce. In the book, the solution to the couples' problems with adultery and the impregnation of one couple's wife by the other couple's husband is to commit to a group marriage to raise their five children in a home compound in which the husbands rotate among the wives.

Larry Constantine and his legal wife, at the time, Joan Constantine, researched and practiced group marriage in the 1970s. They created the Family Tree organization to promote healthy non-monogamous families, and collaboratively authored a book on the subject in 1974, Group Marriage: A Study of Contemporary Multilateral Marriage (Collier Books, 1974).

In James Alan Gardner's book Vigilant (1999) the protagonist is part of a group marriage with multiple men and women involved.

In the 2010 television show Caprica, several main characters are portrayed as being in a polyfidelitous-style marriage consisting of multiple men and women, with each member being equal socially and legally. Such marriages co-exist along with monogamous marriages in the show's civilization. When asked about this aspect of the series, co-creator Ronald D. Moore said "In terms of polygamy, it's usually framed in a "Big Love" context – it's one man with many wives. I thought there was something even more intriguing about a true group marriage where all of the partners were married to one another. They have this much bigger definition of what a marriage was and I thought it was a fascinating cultural idea ...".

The fourth episode of the fourth season of the CBS television series, Elementary, an American procedural drama television series that presents a contemporary update of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's character Sherlock Holmes, has a focus on group marriages. In the episode All My Exes Live in Essex, the victim of Sherlock Holmes's latest case was a participant in a group marriage with two men, and was once in another group marriage with five other people.

In the novel series The Expanse, by James S. A. Corey, which began in 2011, a number of different group marriages are portrayed, such as one with main protagonist James Holden's eight parents. Their marriage consists of one straight couple, one gay couple, and one polyamorous group of four. Their octet primarily exists to exploit a loophole in tax code allowing them to own twenty-two acres of farmland. Group marriages are also described as common on Mars and in the Asteroid Belt.

In the novel Europa Strike by Ian Douglas, one of the POV characters mentions a couple of non-traditional marriages, including three men, and one man with two women. These are off-handed mentions although they are an acknowledged part of the book's universe, with the existence of non-traditional marriage practices having been mentioned in earlier books of the Heritage Trilogy.

See also

References

  1. Engel, F. (2010). The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. London: Penguin Classics.
  2. Morgan, Lewis (1871). Systems of consanguinity and affinity of the human family. Washington: Smithsonian.
  3. "Models of Open Relationships by Kathy Labriola". Cat-and-dragon.com. Retrieved 2015-12-22.
  4. Kramer, Stephanie (December 7, 2020). "Polygamy is rare around the world and mostly confined to a few regions". Pew Research Center.
  5. Westermarck 1922, Part III, p. 240
  6. Ratzel, Friedrich (1896). The History of Mankind. London: MacMillan Press. p. 277. Archived from the original on 7 January 2019. Retrieved 11 April 2010.
  7. Westermarck 1922, Part III, p. 241
  8. Mathew, Biju. "Nair Polyandry". Kerala. Archived from the original on 2018-07-26. Retrieved 2018-06-18.
  9. Polgreen, Lydia (16 July 2010). "One Bride for 2 Brothers: A Custom Fades in India". The New York Times. Malang, India.
  10. සේනාරත්න,පී.ඇම්.ශ්‍රී ලංකා‍‍වේ විවාහ චාරිත්‍ර,සීමාසහිත ඇම්.ඩී.ගුණසේන සහ සමාගම,කොළඹ, 1999.
  11. Morrow, Israel (2019). Gods of the Flesh: A Skeptic's Journey Through Sex, Politics, and Religion. ISBN 9780578438290.
  12. Northcote W. Thomas (1906). Kinship Organizations and Group Marriage in Australia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Archived from the original on 2011-10-28. Retrieved 2009-11-05.
  13. Le Guin, Ursula (2002). The Birthday of the World and Other Stories. HarperCollins.
  14. Constantine, Larry and Joan (1974). Group Marriage: A Study of Contemporary Multilateral Marriage. Collier Books. ISBN 978-0020759102.
  15. Newitz, Annalee (February 22, 2010). "Is Caprica the Big Love Of Science Fiction?". Retrieved March 15, 2021.
  16. Phillips, Jevon (February 6, 2010). "'Caprica': A chat with Ron Moore about the sci-fi soap opera". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved March 15, 2021.
  17. Corey, James (2011). Leviathan Wakes. Orbit Books.
  18. Corey, James (2014). Cibola Burn. Orbit Books.
  19. Corey, James (2015). Nemisis Games. Orbit Books.

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