plural marriage

noun

1. polygamy.

Word History and Origins

Origin of plural marriage¹

First recorded in 1865–70

Example Sentences

And also: Fertility was highly socially valued; more children meant more community respect, a higher chance that a husband remained faithful, and more status in a family with plural marriage; and children offered young mothers a chance to break from the drudgery and intense physical labor of everyday life and engage in play and acts of love and caregiving.

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But in Illinois, Smith was arrested for inciting a riot after he endorsed the destruction of the printing presses belonging to a dissident newspaper that had criticized Smith for plural marriage and other controversial doctrines.

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Jon Krakauer’s propulsive nonfiction bestseller uses a horrific double murder committed by fundamentalist Mormon brothers in 1984 to explore the turbulent history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, its renunciation of plural marriage in 1890 and the origins of radical polygamist sects in which child sexual abuse is widespread.

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Mormon pioneers settled here after being driven out of other states in part because of their beliefs in plural marriage.

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Reality TV polygamist Kody Brown and his wives sued the state and won, effectively decriminalizing plural marriage as a religious belief.

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