Reprise

This article attempts to offer a rebuttal to some of the criticisms advanced by the authors of the three rejoinders to my article “Black Polygamous Family Formation.” It focuses on the nature, meaning, and conceptualization of a polygamous pratice whereby a legally married man takes on a second consensual mate, begins a second family, and lives with it in coexistence with the first family. Both African and African-American patterns are explored to see what the fundamental differences or similarities are between these two patterns of plural marriages—or what I call “polygynous relationships.”