Are there marriages with more than one man but one wife?

Yes, it's called Polyandry and only tends to occur in very very poor cultures.

Heh, funny how that's so rare, right?

I've always found patriarchies to be against nature, actually. if you think about it, considering only matrilinearity was provable before paternity tests and DNA, think about all the legacy wars, notably in Europe, that could have been avoided.
All you had to do was declare someone a bastard, which was quite impossible to prove, but created enough trouble to get people to take sides, and things went to hell really fast.

It can't happen in matriarchies, since well... the child is born of his/her mother and it's easy to witness.

but yeah modern monotheists religion in particular made sure that power was with the men. Of course.

For every lie I unlearn I learn something new - Ani Difranco

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A number of cultures practise one woman and multiple male marriages but it's not very common.

More cultures are matrilineal though, where lineage and control of the household are squarely in the hands of the women. This makes sense in a lot of ways because you can debate who a father is but you can't really argue about who the mother of a child is in times and places without modern DNA tests.

A wife (or indeed husband) isn't a 1/2 or 1/3 or 1/4 a person just because they are in a poly relationship. A lot depends on the culture and agreement they all have. In cultures which suppress the choices and opinions of women it may well be the case. I doubt modern Western people who are poly are into the putting on veils and oppressing people - well, maybe some Mormons but there are lots of secular poly folk out there too.

N.


"You are entitled to your own opinion but not your own facts"