Group marriage or conjoint marriage is a marital arrangement where three or more adults enter into sexual, affective, romantic, or otherwise intimate short- or long-term partnerships, and share in any combination of finances, residences, care or kin work. Group marriage is considered a form of polygamy. While academic usage has traditionally treated group marriage as a marital arrangement, more recent usage has expanded the concept to allow for the inclusion of non-conjugal unions. Colloquial usage of group marriage has also been associated with polyamory and polyamorous families.
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Group marriage in the context of Matrimonial
Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognised union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children (if any), and between them and their in-laws. It is nearly a cultural universal, but the definition of marriage varies between cultures and religions, and over time. Typically, it is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually sexual, are acknowledged or sanctioned. In some cultures, marriage is recommended or considered to be compulsory before pursuing sexual activity. A marriage ceremony is called a wedding, while a private marriage is sometimes called an elopement.
Around the world, there has been a general trend towards ensuring equal rights for women and ending discrimination and harassment against couples who are interethnic, interracial, interfaith, interdenominational, interclass, intercommunity, transnational, and same-sex as well as immigrant couples, couples with an immigrant spouse, and other minority couples. Debates persist regarding the legal status of married women, leniency towards violence within marriage, customs such as dowry and bride price, marriageable age, and criminalization of premarital and extramarital sex. Individuals may marry for several reasons, including legal, social, libidinal, emotional, financial, spiritual, cultural, economic, political, religious, sexual, and romantic purposes. In some areas of the world, arranged marriage, forced marriage, polygyny marriage, polyandry marriage, group marriage, coverture marriage, child marriage, cousin marriage, sibling marriage, teenage marriage, avunculate marriage, incestuous marriage, and bestiality marriage are practiced and legally permissible, while others areas outlaw them to protect human rights. Female age at marriage has proven to be a strong indicator for female autonomy and is continuously used by economic history research.
Group marriage in the context of Polyandry
Polyandry (/ˈpɒliˌændri, ˌpɒliˈæn-/; from Ancient Greek πολύ (polú) 'many' and ἀνήρ (anḗr) 'man') is a form of polygamy in which a woman takes two or more husbands at the same time. Polyandry is contrasted with polygyny, involving one male and two or more females. If a marriage involves a plural number of "husbands and wives" participants of each gender, then it can be called polygamy, group or conjoint marriage. In its broadest use, polyandry refers to sexual relations with multiple males within or without marriage.
Of the 1,231 societies listed in the 1980 Ethnographic Atlas, 186 were found to be monogamous, 453 had occasional polygyny, 588 had more frequent polygyny, and four had polyandry. Polyandry is less rare than this figure suggests, as it considered only those examples found in the Himalayan mountain region (eight societies). More recent studies have found at least four other societies practicing polyandry.