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

And during the whole of the middle ages it was practiced at least in originally Celtic countries, where it was directly transmitted by group marriage, e. g. in Aragonia.

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

He argues however on a later page153 that Nair polyandry, which is more properly termed promiscuity, is group marriage.

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

This or a similar form of group marriage also furnishes the easiest explanation of the reports of Herodotus and other ancient writers concerning community of women among savage and barbarian nations.

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