Under

Gabon Gabon ( ; ), officially the Gabonese Republic (), is a country on the Atlantic coast of Central Africa, on the equator, bordered by Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north, the Republic of the Congo to the east and south, and ...

penal code A criminal code or penal code is a document that compiles all, or a significant amount of, a particular jurisdiction's criminal law. Typically a criminal code will contain Crime, offences that are recognised in the jurisdiction, penalties that ...

, both men and women may have more than one

spouse A spouse is a significant other in a marriage. A female spouse is called a wife while a male spouse is called a husband. Married The legal status of a spouse, and the specific rights and obligations associated with that status, vary signific ...

; however, in practice typically only men take multiple spouses. Before contracting a marriage, the couple must state whether they intend to pursue a

polygamous Polygamy (from Late Greek , "state of marriage to many spouses") is the practice of marrying multiple spouses. When a man is married to more than one wife at the same time, it is called polygyny. When a woman is married to more than one h ...

relationship in the future. Men may later retract their decision and opt for polygamy if they desire, but women do not have this option.

References

See also