Pedro de San Patricio
Gold Member
I should probably define some terms first. "Polygamy" is actually gender neutral in meaning. It just means a marital arrangement between more than two people. The gendered forms are "polygyny" (multiple wives) and "polyandry" (multiple husbands). Both forms have been practiced since before recorded history, with polygyny being more common than polyandry. None of these terms specify anything about the relationship beyond that it involves a marriage and the gender and number of participants. Despite this, there's this strong tendency in our society for people to think all polygamy is polygyny and all polygynous marriages are abusive. It doesn't seem to occur to these people that saying this isn't really different than saying that all two person arrangements are oppressive. It just sounds... silly, honestly. What is it that causes people to think this? Why do they think it suddenly stops being about love just because there's an additional loved one involved?