Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: mls@sfsup.att.com (Mike Siemon) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Monogamy? (was Re: PCUSA report on human sexuality) Message-ID: Date: 24 May 91 04:33:08 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Lines: 39 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu Nit-picking time. This comes up frequently, but seems to move around to different newsgroups so that the frequently posted responses aren't as well known as they should be. There is a verbal confusion, due to the fact that classical Greek is no longer in common parlance. timothy shimeall writes: > I'm not trying to start a linquistic war here, but isn't it better > to use monandrous (one-man) than monogamous (one-woman) to describe The x-gamy words do NOT come from the root meaning woman (that is _gune:_, genitive _gunaikos_, from which we get gynecology, and -- for the present purposes, polygyny meaning having more than one wife). That word is in fact exactly parallel to polyandry (and just as _gune:_ in the context means wives, _andros_ here means husbands.) Monogamy and polygamy come from the root_gamos_ meaning a marriage. It is equally approriate as a description from either genderal perspective -- it is just that in the vast majority of societies women have not been allowed to have multiple husbands, even when the husbands could have multiple wives. Thus, you are *likely* to see "polygamy" only in a sex- specific context, and that "reduces" its meaning when the etymology moves out of the knowlege of the word's users. Further pedantic postscript: _monogamos_ is a normal Greek word, meaning monogamous; _polugamos_ is either not Greek at all or at least uncommon enough not to appear in the small Liddell & Scott (it may be in the large one; I can't get at that now). I don't see _polugunos_ either, and I am of the opinion that this is an anthropological coinage of the last century, as is polyandrous (thoug a quick trip to the OED might prove me wrong :-)). What is interesting is that polydandry, in OUR sense was so far from the conception of the Greeks that THEY used the word _polyandros_ meaning a *numerous* people, or a *well-populated* place (women not counting, of course; after all they were often merely native women taken by force :-)) -- Michael L. Siemon We must know the truth, and we must m.siemon@ATT.COM love the truth we know, and we must ...!att!attunix!mls act according to the measure of our love. standard disclaimer -- Thomas Merton