Polygamy

[David Hobby]

hkhenson wrote:
> At 01:00 PM 2/4/2008, Alberto 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.
> 
> This does not square with field anthropology.  Polygamy is well known 
> in cultures where female infanticide and distorted sex ratios are prevalent.
> 
>       "Polygamy greatly exacerbated women's scarcity and direct and 
> indirect male competition and conflict over them. Indeed, a 
> cross-cultural study (Otterbein 1994: 103) has found polygamy to be 
...
> Sorry to shoot down your thoughts.  Please try again because I would 
> really like to understand it and am clean out of ideas.
> 
> Keith 

Keith--

Hi.  This is interesting.  First, just for clarification, do
the studies have direct evidence of female infanticide, or do
they deduce it from the skewed sex ratio?  (There is some
evidence that the ratio can be made to vary from the norm
without infanticide.  Just checking...)

The part I have trouble with is why it would be in the parent's
interest to have male children rather than females.  In terms of
number of descendants, it seems that females would actually be
a better choice if the sex ratio was skewed.  (Pretending that
each female has 3 children, wouldn't it be better on the
average to have a female child which gave 3 grandchildren,
rather than a male child with a 1 in 10 chance of surviving to
have a harem of 5 women, say?  Since the male produces
0.1 * 5 * 3 = 1.5 grandchildren, on average.)

So the argument would be that the parents are responding to
social forces.  For instance, that a female child costs them
for its upbringing, but provides little return on investment,
since she's going to go live with her husband's family anyway?
(i.e. patrilocality)  And the parents may even need to provide
a dowry.  Whereas grown male children will at least attempt to
pay back their parents, and may even get rich?
(I guess I have classical China in mind, or something.)

Claiming "social forces" produce this effect doesn't really
address the basic question, though.  WHY is this way of
organizing a society stable?  In economic terms, a scarcity
of women should make them more valuable.  This would put
them (or their parents) in a better bargaining position.
So that instead of paying a dowry, parents gradually wind
up being paid a bride price...

					---David

It takes a certain mindset to do this kind of analysis,
doesn't it?  : )