polygamy

Meaning: Polygamy is a marital arrangement in which a person has more than one spouse at once. It is the umbrella term for two forms: polygyny, one man married to several women, and polyandry, one woman married to several men. Both contrast with monogamy, in which a person has one spouse at a time. Marriage norms are part of the family as a social institution, and they vary across cultures.

On the MCAT: A passage may describe a household or a society and ask you to classify it (one husband with three wives is polygyny) or to compare marriage patterns across cultures. Among societies that permit polygamy, polygyny is far more common than polyandry, and even in those societies many marriages are monogamous. The exam may also pair it with serial monogamy, a sequence of single marriages through divorce and remarriage, to show that family forms are shaped by culture and law.

Common confusion: Students often treat polygamy as meaning one man with several wives. That is only polygyny; polygamy is the broader category that also includes polyandry. A second mistake is calling serial monogamy polygamy. In serial monogamy a person has only one spouse at any given time, so it is monogamy. The roots help: gyn means woman and andr means man, so polygyny is many women and polyandry is many men.