Polygamy

[William T Goodall]

On 4 Feb 2008, at 05:10, Julia Thompson wrote:

>
>
> On Mon, 4 Feb 2008, William T Goodall wrote:
>
>>
>> On 4 Feb 2008, at 03:24, Alberto Vieira Ferreira Monteiro wrote:
>>
>>> Keith Henson wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Considering that polygamy is the norm for the vast majority of the
>>>> cultures in the world, it's an interesting question how the western
>>>> countries, and a few others, became monogamous.  It seems to be
>>>> associated with settled agriculture but I don't know if there is a
>>>> connection or why.
>>>>
>>> I would guess that it's peace that doomed polygamy. There can't
>>> be polygamy unless there's more women than men, otherwise
>>> the men without women will revolt.
>>>
>>
>> If gay men don't marry women then there are more available women than
>> straight men.
>
> You're failing to take into account lesbians who have absolutely no
> interest in men.  (Like several people in one of my social  
> circles....)
> That might balance things out somewhat there, putting you back to  
> square
> one.


The consensus is that the  proportion of women who are lesbians is  
much lower than the proportion of men who are gay. If we remove all  
gay and lesbian people from the equation there is still a surplus of  
straight women to straight men. How big a surplus depends on whose  
numbers for the proportions are correct.

San Francisco Maru

-- 
William T Goodall
Mail : wtg at wtgab.demon.co.uk
Web  : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk
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