From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Group marriage schematic

Group marriage is a form of polyamory in which more than one man and more than one woman form a family unit, with all the members of the group marriage being considered to be married to all the other members of the group marriage, and all members of the marriage share parental responsibility for any children arising from the marriage.^[1]

Line marriage is a form of group marriage found in fiction in which the family unit continues to add new spouses of both sexes over time so that the marriage does not end.^[2]

Group marriage is sometimes called polygamy or even polygynandry, from a combination of the words polygyny and polyandry. Others suggest that polygynandry and polygamy can only be considered group marriage under certain circumstances.

non-European cultures

• Among the Sandwich Islanders, the relationship of punalua involved "the fact that two or more brothers with their wives, or two or more sisters with their husbands, were inclined to possess each other in common".^[1]
• In some parts of Melanesia, there are "sexual relations between a group of men formed by the husband's brothers and a group of women formed by the wife's sisters".^[2]

The following instances are cited in Thomas 1906.^[3]

• In North America there is "group marriage as existing among the Omahas ... adelphic polygyny."
• Among the Dieri of Australia exist forms of spouse-sharing known as pirrauru, in two categories "according as the man has or has not a tippa-malku wife. In the first case it is, taken in combination with the tippa-malku marriage, a case of bilateral dissimilar adelphic (M. and F.) polygamy. In the latter case it is dissimilar adelphic (tribal) polyandry". The pirrauru "relation arises through the exchange by brothers of their wives".
• Among the Kurnandaburi of Australia, "a group of men who are own or tribal brothers are united ... in group marriage".
• Among the Wakelbura of Australia, there is "adelphic polyandry."
• Among the Kurnai of Australia, "unmarried men have access to their brothers' wives."

In modern U.S. cultures

Group marriage occasionally occurred in communal societies founded in the 19th and 20th centuries. An exceptionally long-lived example was the Oneida Community founded by John Humphrey Noyes in 1848. Noyes taught that he and his followers had undergone sanctification; that is, it was impossible for them to sin, and that for the sanctified, marriage (along with private property) was abolished as an expression of jealousy and exclusiveness. The Oneida commune practiced sexual communalism and shared parental responsibilities, and in effect functioned as a large group marriage until sometime in the period 1879-1881.

The Kerista Commune practiced group marriage in San Francisco from 1971 to 1991.

It is difficult to estimate the number of people who actually practice group marriage in modern societies, as this form of marriage is not officially recognized or permitted in any jurisdiction in the U.S., and de jure illegal in many. It is also not always visible when people sharing a residence consider themselves privately to form (or self-identify as) a group marriage.

In fiction

Interest in, and practice of nonmonogamy is well-known in modern science fiction fandom. Group marriage has been a theme in some works of science fiction — especially the later novels of Robert A. Heinlein, such as Stranger in a Strange Land, Friday, Time Enough for Love, and The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. Stranger in a Strange Land describes a communal group much like the Oneida Society.

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress describes line families in detail. The characters argue that the line family creates economic continuity and parental stability in an unpredictable, dangerous environment. Manuel's line marriage is said to be over 100 years old. The family is portrayed as economically comfortable because improvements and investments made by previous spouses compounded, rather than being lost between generations. Heinlein also makes it a point that this family is racially diverse. A passing reference to Heinlein's marriage forms is made in David Brin's Infinity's Shore, where a sapient bottlenose dolphin crewmember is noted as belonging to a "line marriage, one of the Heinlein forms."

Group marriages of three partners (called triples) are described as commonplace in the 1966 award-winning novel Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany. The novel's protagonist, a female starship captain Rydra Wong, once lived in a triple, until one member died and another was put in stasis for an incurable illness. Other crew members, especially those who worked in close three-person teams, are noted for this type of relationship.

Line marriage is also commonly practiced in Joe Haldeman's 1981 novel Worlds. Haldeman describes how individual families joined forces, both in bed and on paper, in order to avoid inheritance taxes. Many of these consensual corporations were made up of three-mate marriages called triunes.

Group marriage is a central plot element in Donald Kingsbury's 1982 novel Courtship Rite. A six-partner group marriage (three male, three female) is considered the ideal norm in the alien society described in the novel; the main characters are in a five-partner group marriage, and much of the dramatic tension hinges on there being more than one candidate for the sixth position.

Group marriage is briefly addressed in the 1989 Star Trek novel Star Trek: The Lost Years, by J.M. Dillard (published by Pocket Books). A minor character, Lt. Nguyen, enters into a group marriage and is portrayed as a relatively normal occurrence within the society of the Star Trek world.

William H. Keith, Jr., under his pseudonym Ian Douglas, describes line marriages as the norm, with large family clans extending through many generations, in his Heritage Trilogy, and its two sequels Legacy Trilogy and Inheritance Trilogy. These three trilogies are about the US Marine Corp battling aliens over a period of a thousand years.

References

• Ethnographic Atlas Codebook, derived from George P. Murdock’s Ethnographic Atlas.
• Edward Westermarck : The History of Human Marriage. Allerton Book Company, New York, 1922.
• Emens, Elizabeth F. (2004). "Monogamy's Law: Compulsory Monogamy and Polyamorous Existence". New York University Review of Law & Social Change 29 (2): 277.  
• Murdock, George Peter (1949). Social Structure. New York: The MacMillan Company. ISBN 0-02-922290-7.  
• Dillard, J.M. (1989). The Lost Years. Pocket Books. pp. 440.. ISBN 0-7434-5422-7, ISBN 978-0-7434-5422-3.  
• Heinlein, Robert (1996). The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.. pp. 260–262.. ISBN 0-312-86335-1.  

Footnotes

1. ^ , Murdock, 1949, p. 24.

   group marriage or a marital union embracing at once several men and several women.

2. ^ , Murdock, 1949, p. 24.
3. ^ , Heinlein, 1996, pp. 260-262.