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

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

On the very next page group marriage is spoken of as having preceded the present state of things.

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

In the later forms of group marriage, a similar relation was probably maintained, only under a continual narrowing of the group.

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

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