What's the difference between monogamy and polygamy?

Monogamy


Definition:

  • (n.) Single marriage; marriage with but one person, husband or wife, at the same time; -- opposed to polygamy. Also, one marriage only during life; -- opposed to deuterogamy.
  • (n.) State of being paired with a single mate.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) A ten-year study of the sexual behavior of college students in Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada, shows that students choose among three sexual subcultures: celibacy, monogamy, and free experimentation.
  • (2) Citing the noted study by Larry Young into voles, which went some way to proving their monogamy was a function of the way in which the hormone oxytocin was transmitted in the brain, Faulkes believes something similar will likely be revealed in the naked mole rats.
  • (3) Two forms of monogamy occur, Type I, facultative, and Type II, obligate.
  • (4) No one characteristic can be taken as definitive of monogamy.
  • (5) Still, there's an upside to 007's monogamy, and it may just explain how this much-maligned film has wheedled its way so irrevocably into my affections: uniquely in the world of Bond, it allows a vein of romantic adventure to develop that's real, not illusory.
  • (6) What if the problem were to be serial monogamy or, dare I say it, the unpleasant fact that not all men are tantric sex gods?
  • (7) Equal rights to monotony, monogamy and vol-au-vents is just not my idea of modernisation or equality, because marriage is not an institution based on equality.
  • (8) Of these not anticipating monogamy three quarters mentioned the use of condoms.
  • (9) Even though the promotion of condom use is not sufficient to stop the AIDS epidemic, governments should nevertheless emphasize its importance as one method of controlling AIDS to be used alongside of monogamy and other preventive measures.
  • (10) Does monogamy no longer appear to offer a measure of personal happiness to the older working women?
  • (11) The hypothesis that polygyny is associated with higher fertility than monogamy was evaluated.
  • (12) We shouldn’t beat ourselves up about one-night stands or walks of shame.” The idea of your 20s as a carefree period before a woman starts her “real” life of monogamy and child-bearing is not a new one: see the end of John Cleland’s Memoirs of A Woman of Pleasure , published in 1748, where 300 pages of masturbation, orgies and lesbianism are followed by a “tail-piece of morality”, and protagonist Fanny Hill explains that she is much happier now she’s put all that filthy shagging behind her.
  • (13) Forty-four percent of the postannouncement sample indicated that, as a result of the news, they were now using condoms; 32% reported no effect; and 54% reported a variety of behavior changes that included monogamy (21%), greater selectivity (10.6%), fewer sexual partners (9.2%), and abstinence (3.5%).
  • (14) Although monogamy and mate choice in humans may be regulated by underlying processes different from those in other species, there are many functional similarities, and both are ultimately the products of natural selection.
  • (15) I find myself following in the footsteps of Frank Beach's Nebraska Symposium paper of 30 years ago in arguing against a unitary concept of monogamy, just as he argued against a unitary concept of "sex drive."
  • (16) Rather, the data show that polygamy and monogamy select women with different social characteristics, which are associated with different rates of cumulative fertility.
  • (17) Within both types of monogamy, the following traits are typically seen: (1) adults show little sexual dimorphism either physically or behaviorally: (2) the adult male and female exhibit infrequent socio-sexual interactions except during the early stages of pair bond formation.
  • (18) The data overwhelmingly suggest that avoidance of exposure to HPV via abstinence or monogamy in both partners markedly reduces the risk of cervical cancer.
  • (19) Male mammals show a diverse array of mating bonds, including obligate monogamy, unimale and group polygyny and promiscuity.
  • (20) The essence of monogamy appears to lie in three dimensions--exclusivity of mating, shared parental care, and association.

Polygamy


Definition:

  • (n.) The having of a plurality of wives or husbands at the same time; usually, the marriage of a man to more than one woman, or the practice of having several wives, at the same time; -- opposed to monogamy; as, the nations of the East practiced polygamy. See the Note under Bigamy, and cf. Polyandry.
  • (n.) The state or habit of having more than one mate.
  • (n.) The condition or state of a plant which bears both perfect and unisexual flowers.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Polygamy and Islam were more prevalent among the EA than the booked.
  • (2) Gene Schaerr, who represented Utah, warned that if the state could not define marriage the way it wanted, it might have to open the door to polygamy.
  • (3) The incidence of polygamy was higher among the rejectors, and rejectors' husbands had more children from their other wives.
  • (4) Current family adversity in terms of unstable parental union, paternal use of alcohol, polygamy and sibship size operated by interactive or additive effect.
  • (5) This is underscored by our current inability to explain satisfactorily several patterns including the relative significance of floating, geographic biases in the incidence of cooperative breeding, sexual asymmetries in delayed dispersal, the relationship between delayed dispersal leading to helping behavior and cooperative polygamy, and the rarity of the co-occurrence of helpers and floaters within the same population.
  • (6) The vehemence of Conservative divisions over same-sex marriage were exposed when one Tory MP said it would undermine "normal marriage", another questioned whether polygamy would be legalised next, and a third claimed that European judges will soon force the Church of England to allow same-sex marriages against its will.
  • (7) 'He was sitting directly in front of me, with three wives on one side and four on the other, and I began to sing "polygamy is the worst of all things".
  • (8) It’s not a conservative society in a stereotyped way.” She has campaigned against issues such as polygamy, domestic violence and so-called “honour” killings.
  • (9) He supports polygamy and a ban on gambling and alcohol, and wants to build Europe's largest mosque - and he leads a large private militia which is accused of savage brutality in Chechnya.
  • (10) Further, it is shown that the human species rapidly evolved its life-extending mutations because of the special circumstances afforded by the subdivision of the species into small semi-isolated (genetically) tribes of 10-100 individuals in which polygamy was the key factor in rapid incorporation of life- and well-being-extending new features.
  • (11) The total fertility of 6.2 was high but lower than the national average possibly because of the high rates of polygamy and primary infertility and the long periods of amenorrhoea and breast feeding which occurred after delivery.
  • (12) Sexually-transmitted diseases such as vaginitis (80%) were caused by polygamy, prostitution, and promiscuity, HIV serodiagnosis could not be performed because of a lack of equipment.
  • (13) We were told gay marriage was the slippery slope to polygamy, bestiality and incest.
  • (14) Rather, the data show that polygamy and monogamy select women with different social characteristics, which are associated with different rates of cumulative fertility.
  • (15) The contributions of such factors as rural-urban migration, birth order, family size, polygamy and genetics to the etiology of major mental disorders in this population require further investigations.
  • (16) Dr Matthew Offord, MP for Hendon, asked if the government was going to introduce other forms of marriage, such as polygamy.
  • (17) It is possible that multiple marriages and polygamy played a significant role in the bacterial colonisation of the endometrium in the Hausa-Fulani population of Zaria, Nigeria.
  • (18) The elected president, the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohammed Morsi, rescinded some of these rights: restrictions on polygamy were lifted; a reduction of the marriage age was proposed; women's right to seek divorce was limited.
  • (19) One local mayor was roundly criticised earlier this year after he warned legalising gay marriage would open the way to legalising polygamy or incest.
  • (20) Polygamy is fairly widespread in Chechnya, explained partly by local traditions and partly by a shortage of menfolk after all the tragedies the Chechens have experienced in recent decades.