group marriage

American  

noun

1. (among primitive peoples) a form of marriage in which a group of males is united with a group of females to form a single conjugal unit.

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group marriage British  

noun

1. an arrangement in which several males live together with several females, forming a conjugal unit

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Etymology

Origin of group marriage

First recorded in 1895–1900

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

group marriage

In fact, Guiteau had so little luck during his five-plus years living at the Oneida Community, a New York religious commune that practiced group marriage, that the women there nicknamed him “Charles Git-out.”

From Washington Post ● Aug. 21, 2019

An unconventional look at the director’s conventional parents, who lived in a group marriage in the ’70s.

From New York Times ● Feb. 25, 2010

From this fact by parity of reasoning we must draw the obvious conclusion that during the period when group marriage was the rule, individual mothers were unknown.

From Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia by Thomas, Northcote Whitridge

The most essential contribution to our knowledge of the group marriage we owe to the English missionary, Lorimer Fison, who studied this form of the family for years on its classical ground, Australia.

From The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State by Engels, Friedrich

Here we touch Bachofen's fourth great discovery: the widespread form of transition from group marriage to pairing family.

From The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State by Engels, Friedrich