polyfamily

polyfamily

English

Etymology

poly- +‎ family

Noun

polyfamily (plural polyfamilies)

1. A group of people in a polyamorous relationship, who consider each other as family.
   • 2008, Miriam Koktvedgaard Zeitzen, Polygamy: A Cross-Cultural Analysis, Bloomsbury Academic (→ISBN), page 13:

     Group marriage must be contrasted with polyfamilies, which is similar to group marriage but where some members may not considered themselves married to all other members.

   • 2010, Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli, Border Sexualities, Border Families in Schools, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (→ISBN), page 172:

     Interestingly, despite the percentages above illustrating that many polyfamilies in the Polyamory Survey had children or wanted children, only approximately 30 percent of survey respondents had told their children about their poly relationships or their desire to be in one...

2. Such a group, together with children of members of the group.
   • 2008, Brette Sember, Unmarried with Children: The Complete Guide for Unmarried Families, Simon and Schuster (→ISBN)

     When a child is born into a polyfamily, he or she has legal parents and nonlegal parents.

   • 2010, Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli, Polyfamilies Go to School, chapter 18 of Understanding Non-Monogamies, ed. Meg Barker, Darren Langdridge; Routledge (→ISBN), page 185:

     Some adults in the research who had grown up in polyfamilies and who had learned to lie at school believed that the positives they had gained from being raised in such closeted families far outweighed any negatives such as lying.