Polygamy (Gr. polys, 'many,' gamicin, 'to marry') includes etymologically the social arrangement by which one wife has many husbands, now usually termed Polyandry (q.v.), as well as that in which a man has or may have several or many wives. To the latter the term polygamy is, however, practically restricted. Formerly polygamy was thought to be probably the original type of the development which has culminated in the marriage relations of civilised peoples; that this is not so is shown somewhat fully in the articles FAMILY and MARRIAGE.
Polygamy certainly obtained at one time over a very large area of the world's surface; in general it may be said still to be the rule not merely amongst most African races, but amongst the peoples, both more and less civilised, of 'the East' generally, and to a certain extent in Australia and Polynesia, though it is rare amongst American Indians. That this custom was usual in Old Testament times is obvious from many references; the New Testament seems to indicate that monogamy was universal amongst the Jews of the 1st century, though the Talmud contains no positive prohibition against a plurality of wives. Christianity has never tolerated polygamy; even Concubinage (q.v.) has been always treated as sinful, and polygamy is a crime by the law of Christian states. Greeks and Romans did not practise polygamy within historical times; the ancient Germans were the only barbarians known to Tacitus who were content with a single wife. Moslem law and usage permit a man to have four wives, but such plurality is confined to the rich; poor men have seldom more than one wife (see MOHAMMEDANISM). There is no limit to the number of wives a Hindu may keep, without taking account of concubines. Instances still occur of a high-caste man of wealth having a hundred wives. But in this connection it should be remembered that in hot countries girls become marriageable at an early age, and soon lose their youth and attractiveness; a man's first wife may remain his confidante and real companion through life, though he provides himself with a succession of girl favourites. In China there is but one rightful wife in a household, though a man may, if he will, keep secondary wives or concubines.
In Christian countries, even in those where concubinage and adultery are lightly regarded and divorce very easily obtained, polygamy is dealt with as a criminal offence. In Britain and the United States Bigamy (q.v.) is severely punished; under the same head any polygamous union is included. Nevertheless there have occasionally been found divines to defend polygamy or something like it. The Anabaptists insisted on such freedom; Ochino (q.v.) wrote in defence of it. When in 1540 Philip the Magnanimous, the reforming landgrave of Hesse, resolved with the consent of his wife (then a confirmed invalid) to marry a second wife, Luther and Melanchthon approved the step 'as his personal friends, though not as doctors of theology;' and Bucer (q.v.) promoted, approved, and witnessed the bigamous union. The first wife survived the second marriage for nine years. As late as 1667, when Catherine of Braganza miscarried, some Anglican divines suggested polygamy as the best way of securing a direct heir to the throne. See also MILTON, p. 205.
Morganatic Marriage (q.v.) and Handfasting (q.v.) greatly simplified divorce, and often preceded a more binding and legitimate union; but another union at the same time was not compatible with either. In 1780 the Rev. Martin Madan, chaplain to the Lock Hospital in London, startled the world and raised a violent controversy by arguing in favour of polygamy as a means of diminishing prostitution and saving human souls from guilt; the work in which these views were advocated was called Thelyphthora, or a Treatise on Female Ruin (3 vols. 1780-81). In recent times the Mormons (q.v.) by their practice of polygamy created a troublesome question for the administrators of United States law; but in 1890 they agreed to cease from making plural marriages. It has always been a difficulty for Christian missionaries when converts with several wives desired baptism. As a rule the convert was treated as married only to the first wife in point of date, and was required absolutely to put away all the others—a rule that was inevitably harsh and inequitable in its operation. Bishop Colenso declined to make the convert part from wives he had married in good faith; so did the American missionaries in Burma; and M'Farlane, in Among the Cannibals in New Guinea (1888), says that he and the other missionaries of the London Missionary Society 'resolved not to interfere with those social relations in which the gospel found the people of New Guinea.' See ANTHROPOLOGY, FAMILY, MARRIAGE, HAREM, and the works cited there.