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International Journal of Population Studies

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Polygyny and spousal violence in

India: Findings from the 2019 – 2021

national family health survey

Rangasamy Nagarajan * and Harihar Sahoo 2
1
1 Department of Population and Development, International Institute for Population
Sciences, Mumbai, India
2 Department of Family and Generations, International Institute for Population Sciences,
Mumbai, India

Abstract: Polygyny results in a variety of physical, sexual, and psychological consequences
for women which has an impact on gender relations such as the subordination of women,
unequal treatment of spouses, neglect of children, rivaling step-children, and inheritance issues
among children/spouses. This study aims to explore the association between polygyny and
spousal violence in India using the data from the fifth round of the National Family Health
ARTICLE INFO Survey-5 of India in 2019 – 2021, which provides information on both polygyny and spousal

Received: September 15, 2022 violence. To understand the effect of polygyny on spousal violence, multivariate logistic
Accepted: December 1, 2022 regressions were used to obtain unadjusted and adjusted odds ratios by controlling a number
Published: December 29, 2022 of explanatory factors. The results reveal that women in polygynous unions experience more
spousal violence compared with those in monogamous unions. The results indicate that, since
*CORRESPONDING AUTHOR the law does not permit men to be married to more than one wife simultaneously, this form of
Rangasamy Nagarajan, marriage should be discouraged by strictly enforcing it to protect women from marital violence
Department of Population and in polygynous unions. The analysis contributes to the body of the literature on the association
Development, International between polygynous marriage and spousal violence in the Indian context.
Institute for Population
Sciences, Mumbai, India. Keywords: Polygyny; Spousal violence; India; National family health survey
nagarajan@iipsindia.ac.in
CITATION 1. Introduction
Nagarajan, R., & Sahoo, H. Polygyny is a form of polygamy involving the practice of one man being married to
(2021). Polygyny and spousal multiple wives at the same time. Polygyny was commonly practiced in many cultures
violence in India: Findings from around the world – it existed in more than 83% of 849 cultures worldwide during
the 2019 – 2021 national family
health survey. International 1960 – 1980 (Coult & Habenstein, 1965; Murdock, 1981; Gray, 1998) and, in 35% of
Journal of Population Studies, cultures, it is sororal, that is, men marry sisters (Coult & Habenstein, 1965). Although
7(1):115-131. polygyny is not a common practice today as opposed to the past, it is still being practiced
doi: 10.18063/ijps.v7i1.350 by some sections of the communities in many parts of the world, especially in many
Copyright: ©2022 Islamic and African nations (Jansen & Agadjanian, 2020; Kramer, 2020), and including
Nagarajan and Sahoo. This India (Rahaman et al., 2022).
is an Open-Access article The practice of polygyny exists in different ways depending on religious, customary,
distributed under the terms cultural, regional, and socioeconomic contexts (Altman & Ginat, 1996; Bretschneider,
of the Creative Commons
Attribution-Non-Commercial 1995; Jansen & Agadjanian, 2020). The consequences associated with the practice may
4.0 International License also differ according to these contexts. There are several causes and consequences of
(http://creativecommons.org/ polygynous marriage. Polygyny may occur for various reasons such as excess mortality
licenses/by-nc/4.0/), permitting of men than women, leading to a deficit of men and surplus of women, desire to have
all non-commercial use, children to continue the family line, failure to produce children/son by first wife, and the
distribution, and reproduction
in any medium, provided the cultural practices of lengthy periods of sexual abstinence after childbirth driving the man
original work is properly cited. to seek another partner (Dorjahn, 1959; Ezeh, 1997; Gage-Brandon, 1992; Josephson,

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