Polyamorus vs. Polygamy

Many people confuse polyamory, polygamy, polygyny, and polyandry — and this confusion is unsurprising, considering that those terms are new to most of us! While these are all different relationship styles that involve more than two people, there are some key differences between them. In short, polyamory is the act of having intimate relationships with more than one person at the same time. A polyamorous person might have or might be open to having multiple romantic partners. Polygamy, on the other hand, involves being married to multiple partners.  Some polyamorous people are married and have partners outside of their marriage. However, polygamy exclusively describes relationships where people are married. Polyandry and polygyny are both forms of polygamy (in other words, they involve marriage too).Polyamory and polygamy might sound similar, but in practice, they’re quite different.  Polyamory and polygamy are both gender-neutral terms. They can refer to women having multiple partners of any gender, men having multiple partners of any gender, or nonbinary people having partners of any gender. Polygyny specifically refers to a man who has multiple wives. Polyandry refers to a woman who has multiple husbands.In practice, polygyny is far more common than polyandry.Tune in a figure out the pros and cons of both Polyamory and polygamy!