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The two different forms of polygamy are polyandry and group marriage. Polyandry is more than one husband and group marriage is when more than one man and more than one women form a family unit, and are considered to be all married to each other.
Polyandry has some positive aspects in the sense that there is only one woman to have children. Due to the fact that there is more than one husband, more care can be provided to the woman during her pregnancy, or when she is at home. The negative effects are that because there is more than one husband, it can be less beneficial to the men, because they have only one woman among a group of men to share. It can be said that one form of this is like the Nayar in Southern India. They have “passing visitor” and a “visiting husband”. The woman can choose among different men basically, and when she has a child, it is up to one of the men that she has been with to step up and claim the child as his.
Group marriage has some advantages and disadvantages as well. Some advantages are that everyone is in one group, everyone is married to each other, and equal responsibilities are delegated amongst that group. Some disadvantages are that it can get to be an issue because there is more than one relationship occurring at a time.
One example of the group marriage can be Kibbutz people of Israel. They are in a communal state of living. This particular group has everything in common and everything shared. It began in the 1930s by Marxist Polish immigrants who believed in command democrative living. If two people decided they wanted to be married, they had to go before a housing committee. If they were approved, they lived together had children. Their children were then placed into a housing facility after 6 weeks. The buildings were co-ed. If there were any mutual attractions between a boy and a girl as they got older, they went before the housing committee and the process repeated itself again. In a way, this style of living is kind of similar to group marriage.
If I had a choice, I would probably go with the Nayar style of living. I think that it would allow for less problems in my point of view, because I wouldn’t constantly be sharing everything that I did. I would be able to have several men come to me and care for me and such and I think that it would be kind of an interesting way to live.
COURTESY OF TANYA
Polyandry has some positive aspects in the sense that there is only one woman to have children. Due to the fact that there is more than one husband, more care can be provided to the woman during her pregnancy, or when she is at home. The negative effects are that because there is more than one husband, it can be less beneficial to the men, because they have only one woman among a group of men to share. It can be said that one form of this is like the Nayar in Southern India. They have “passing visitor” and a “visiting husband”. The woman can choose among different men basically, and when she has a child, it is up to one of the men that she has been with to step up and claim the child as his.
Group marriage has some advantages and disadvantages as well. Some advantages are that everyone is in one group, everyone is married to each other, and equal responsibilities are delegated amongst that group. Some disadvantages are that it can get to be an issue because there is more than one relationship occurring at a time.
One example of the group marriage can be Kibbutz people of Israel. They are in a communal state of living. This particular group has everything in common and everything shared. It began in the 1930s by Marxist Polish immigrants who believed in command democrative living. If two people decided they wanted to be married, they had to go before a housing committee. If they were approved, they lived together had children. Their children were then placed into a housing facility after 6 weeks. The buildings were co-ed. If there were any mutual attractions between a boy and a girl as they got older, they went before the housing committee and the process repeated itself again. In a way, this style of living is kind of similar to group marriage.
If I had a choice, I would probably go with the Nayar style of living. I think that it would allow for less problems in my point of view, because I wouldn’t constantly be sharing everything that I did. I would be able to have several men come to me and care for me and such and I think that it would be kind of an interesting way to live.
COURTESY OF TANYA
