When/how did polygamy stop?

[Subu'atai]

Back in the day, we had plenty of wives, yet they were all feminist

However, now we're "sorta" lucky, as we can just have one feminist to deal with. Though, how did polygamy stop on the steppes? Just curious

[H. İhsan Erkoç]

Actually, polygamy was always limited for the rulers and the rich, as long as they could afford more than one wife. The ordinary tribesmen were usually monogamist.

[Subu'atai]

Ahhh I see, so the 'switch' to monogamy wasn't much of a switch ne ways. Makes sense heh, the progression seemed so natural

[H. İhsan Erkoç]

Yes indeed, it is

One example is that, during Ahmad ibn Fadlan's visit to an Oghuz chieftain, the chief asked Ibn Fadlan how many wives did their Allah have ;D ;D ;D

[sharshuvuu]

Friend of mine told me about an event from the mid-twentieth century. At his university there was a Kyrghyz on the faculty. A guest lecturer from the Kyrghyz SSR came and gave a talk about current conditions, which expressed all the conventional pieties about how they had progressed as a result of being part of the USSR: intertribal enmities were a thing of the past, polygamy had been abolished, &c. After the lecture the sponsoring department took the speaker out to dinner, and the Kyrghyz scholar at the university was in the party, so they seated them together. They regarded each other with some suspicion until they had established that they came from friendly tribes, then they talked happily in Kyrghyz. The speaker turned out to have three wives (two of them were officially "my wife's cousins who live with us"). He had little love for the Soviet system.

Sharshuvuu

[H. İhsan Erkoç]

LOL interesting story ;D