Discussion Does polygamy in western settings actually exist?

Wait are you talking historically? As many early European nobleman had concubine, mistress or multiple wives, it wouldn't be unlikely for early written western/european works to have polygamy show up within them.

 

I'll take the real-life perspective of "western setting" on this one. Medieval era as the limit. TL;DR at the bottom.

Considering they're two main forces that defined what we today refer to western society, seems fitting to start with the clash of the Roman empire with the Christian faith. From Jesus' ministry (c27-30) up until the Council of Nicea (325), there was the Early Church, still deeply rooted in Jewish traditions, wherein polygamy was a mainstay, as seen in the many Old Testament nonchalant quotes to it. The Romans, however, were pretty strictly marriage-monogamous (quaint that the civ born out of large-scale rape would turn out like this, but I digress).

Already in the New Testament there was some debate that, strict interpretations aside, generally showed some disdain to the practice. By the end of the Early Church era, most of the big names (like St Augustine) were out denouncing it as fornication, not marriage. The topic that will haunt it all for centuries coincides with this era: divorce is not lawful by the church, and therefore is essentially polygamy to its eyes.

By the early Middle Ages (we got there bois), after the fall of Rome, customs clashed around Europe a bit, and a general consensus arrived that divorce might be maybe sometimes but not always okay if one's partner (reading: wife) is adulterous. Also, back to the main point, this was the high time of bridenapping among the continent's cultures (not a war's large-scale, kidnapping a woman, forcing her into marriage, having kids). This is usually the time in which big boy rulers would take multiple wives, since who would stop'em? Popes are figureheads.

From here on out though, they decided to rarely allow divorces, essentially only to highly influential kings and Emperors. The tribal and/or unchristian parts of the world (old Ireland, the viking Norse, the Tengri, Romuva, Slavs, Suomenusko...) still held their customs of concubinage, but that might not fit with the standard fantasy medieval setting, which is rarely inspired in pagan societies. By 1200-1300, the Norse were largely cristianized and concubinage prohibited, while a bunch of northern Crusades made sure little Paganism was left.

TL;DR: Turn of the millenium? Yeah, everyone, except Rome & Greece. Early medieval period (476-800)? Yeah, mostly by tribal, and/or pagan societies, or you know, whoever didn't give two shits about the Pope at the time. High to late middle age (1000-1500)? Why bother? Get excommunicated and/or crusaded ye simp. Hope the Pope's particularly Machiavellian or financially destitute and you might get a divorce.

 

The state not agreeing doesn't mean that christianity obliged it(monogamy), said so in some chapters yes, but didn't oblige monogamy, the state is another thing, and you can make a search for example here or as mentioned in the book of Genesis 4:19; 16:1-4; 29:18-29 (polygamy is accepted here as in marriage) that is why polygamy is accpeted in christianity, now you might say the state didn't accept it but, the thing is, the state is promoting best practices (because Adam and Eve are one man and one woman thus monogamy) in the name of christianity and there is a difference

Edit: I noticed that my comment was a bit ambiguous in some parts so I corrected it, apologies @icerror

 

In the time of 'Great Kings' and Emperors in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, yes it was common for nobility and royalty to have multiple wives (or even husbands). In later periods it was almost a requirement for royalty to have mistresses, in order to insure they had successors in case of an accident.

Sad as it is to say, you have to understand that the mortality rate for young kids was something like 1 survivor in 8 births. Access to fresh water and fresh food was hard to come by in large portions of the world too, so health issues were always a problem along other such things. So in order to secure prosperity, a family had to be big in such a way.

Now, in the west things went off-kilter with the rise of monotheistic religion. Particularly Roman Catholicism, but even modern Islamic traditions have done away with polygamy as a general rule too. This is a issue of social engineering that's become 'common sense' in the modern era, and morals.

Someone mentioned something earlier that most kings or royalties that people know about today have never had more than a single 'wife' or husband in the relationship. More specifically, if you look at figures like Henry the 8th, where he was happily married until his first wife miscarried then went on to break with the Catholic Church, you can see where the overlapping of social norms and religion were standing in the way of the 'Royal Prerogative'. Since the Pope refused to allow him a divorce, he went on to separate England from the Church in order to rectify that problem. Henry NEEDED a male heir, both to continue his House but also to buffer his own prestige. A monarch without kids was not a good thing during those times.

 

My comment is a bit religious and might be a problem for the forums.

No idea if "Islam" is western since its very much west to where i'm at but they do have some polygyny or something. Wikipedia says its true so maybe?
No offense to any Muslim's here.

 

Laurel K. Hamilton gets published, so yes
I is rare in western literature largely because of the bibe thumpers and moral outragers having to much sway on cultural norms and values, but does exist.

 

It's not that polygamy is something common, it's just something allowed.
However in order to have a harem you need to be powerful/rich/influential enough to support them. The reason you don't see every Tom, Dick, and Harry have one is because the common man usually can't support more than one wife. The bigger the harem, the bigger the requirements of providing for them will be. The Main Character of a story usually fulfills these requirements the further the story progresses so naturally he gets one. But you won't see every guy get one unless they are extremely powerful.

 

Chaotic Sword God says hello.

Spoiler

MC's father has multiple wives. MC's relationship with his half-siblings and stepmothers actually plays a significant part to early arc of the story, and it continues paying its part here and there all the way to ~c1600.

i seem to vaguely remember MC from Tian Long Ba Bu having difficulties in his love life, thanks to his father being too womanizing in his youth, so several of jade beauties turns out to be his sister. but i could be wrong (my memory of it is quite hazy, except for certain events). it has been more than a decade since i read it afterall.

 

Both women came to know each other and didn't mind. He had a thing with the first woman at the same time, as well.

 

huh?
on fiction wn Sevens, fith generation have 4 or five wive, sixth generation have three~ it also mentioned noble usualy marriage by politic so kinda normal after they have children for house continuity then have affair ehem lover~

consider marriages among noble is about connection, raise of prestige, influence and such then logical explanation why most just have one wife while multiple lover, wife or wife house on similar power if not it higher ofcourse there may exception~ hence if da husbando wanna have another waifu good luck try to convince da waifu family~ unless da waifu cannot bear children then it mean or da waifu house power way lower than husbando~ nada you expect some bloodbath~ beside repercution from ehem multiple waifu maybe not so good~ hey noble really care about face!

about noble, king or merchant have one alive waifu ehem wife~ put on mind it kinda rare on such story flashing other family or household condition~ heck how many times you meet da Queen? while prince or princess as many as star on sky~
another point da good noble somehow feel in love toward da waifu like purfect romance~ really weird

 

All the otome game novels and some of the low fantasy western medieval novels had many nobles practising polygamy.

 

Yes, but this was subverted in the end because he found out that HE actually wasn’t his fathers son, so all of those girls were still boneable.

 

"the cripple that was supposed to be the rightful king" incident, wasn't it?

 

Your cat must be bored~

 

Usually they cite that XYZ's mother is a mistress of a noble but formally having more than one official wife is rare in western settings. The only one I can think of are Hachinan tte, Sore wa Nai Deshou! and Isekai Tensei Soudouki.

 

A. Nope. It's just the author wants a convenient plot xd
B. You could say that, yes. But it is called a Light novel for a reason xd
C. Ofc not. The author won't go that far. The author usually would show one or two nobles have a lot of wives.
D. I think it's more like the MC doesn't care about it. A lot of LN use a 1st person perspective. And our mentality usually ignored other people's life subconsciously if it doesn't have anything to do with them.

Ofc. Polygamy is something done not only by Nobles, but also commoners in western culture. It's just that most people won't be able to afford the kids and the wives, so only rich merchant commoners would have 2nd or so wives. Or even concubine.

 

Mormon fundamentalists still engages in polygamy, although the main sect was pressured into disavowing it and excommunicate any practitioners.
There are laws still in some US jurisdiction that illegalizes any non family male cohabitation with more than three females. Doesn't matter if they are in a relationship or not, just the appearance of harem is enough.

 

This reminds me of Isekai Smartphone. They tell him that it's normal for royalty and nobility to have multiple wives, but very few royals actually have them. And the ones whom I remember actually having multiple wives were not European-styled (the Beast King of pseudo-middle-eastern Mismede and the king of some tropical islands). And the MC, of course - 9 wives, 1 self-proclaimed mistress and a few perverted maid androids.
On the other hand, when MC tried to bluff his way out of talking about his family, people around him decided that his entire family tree was full of harems, and even the MC can't count all of his relatives.

Well, it's actually reasonable. There is not much meaning to having more than one wife, unless you're some kind of tentacle monster. But the amount of trouble having three wives (and three mothers-in-law) brings is not worth it. Even in countries where it's allowed to have more than one wife, few people actually do it.

 

The most obvious reason why polygamy would be both common, and accepted, would be a massive gender imbalance with many more females then males in the society. The imbalance could be because more men are dying for some reason, or that more woman are being born. Since most of these stories take place in fantasy worlds it would be easy to just say that in this world three woman are born for every man, or some such ratio. You don't even really need to explain why, but if you want to explain it would be easy enough to say that it's will of god, the demon king's cures or some such bull. Anyways I think doing things this way would really solve a lot of the problems in the Isekai harem genre.