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Yeah, people often confuse polygamy and polygyny nowadays. I suppose it's because during historical times, polygyny became much more common than polyandry, and so when polygamy is mentioned people immediately think of polygyny.
That being said, in prehistorical times, it's polyandry that was the rule. In those days men spent most of their time hunting and fighting with rival tribes, early deaths were pretty common. Women never left the dwelling and relied completely on men for food, women had to have several husbands because if they had only one and he died during a hunt or a fight, she wouldn't get any food for her and her children, so it was just common sense to have several husbands to limit that risk.
For men however it made no sense to have several wives because there was no way one man would be able to feed several women and their children, so polygyny was unknown.
It's only with civilization that polygyny started to develop. With civilizations appeared clear hierarchy among men, some men became leaders, they had power and wealth, so it became possible for them to have several wives. Also, those men had to transmit their power and wealth to their descendants, so having legitimate heirs became a major concern. It became customary for those men to have several wives to insure that they would get several male heirs. Those men also tended to live longer, so it also became customary to take a new young wife (and in those days that meant something like 12 yo) when the first older wife was no longer so appealing and fertile.
In most civilizations, not only polygyny developed, but polyandry decayed. First because with agriculture and breeding it became easier for one man to feed one or more women and their children, but also and mainly because the notions of property and heritage appeared. Men wanted their properties to be transmitted to children they were sure to have fathered. With polyandry, since women had several husbands, a man was never sure which children were his, and with properties to transmit that became unacceptable for men. So not only polyandry decayed, but in most cases it was even declared illegal and adultery became a serious crime for women.
So both polyandry and polygyny originally had logical reasons to exist, reasons that made sense in the social contexts of their times.
But now in modern societies where people are free to screw around as much as they want in any number and gender combinations, i'm not sure there is even a need to have any kind of formal union between people (whatever gender and number).
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