ABSTRACT
A major aspect of polygamy’s gender dimension is the asymmetry it implies. First, in polygyny a man can marry several women, whereas a woman can marry only one man. In polyandry, the reverse is usually the case. Second, in polygyny a man can make a second choice, he can marry a second wife for his own pleasure whereas the first wife might have been chosen as a concession to familial obligations. The gender dimension of polygamy hence not only involves the relations between the sexes, but also very much concerns the relations between members of the same sex. Men’s competition for wives has ramifications in all aspects of society, not just in how they organize their domestic arrangements. The matrix gender–power–polygamy is woven into the very fabric of the institution, because there is a fundamental inequality in one person having the possibility of marrying several spouses, whereas these spouses can only marry one person in return.
