Polygamy

[Pat Mathews]

Two reasons besides patrilocality that males might be more valuable:

Heavy labor it takes a lot of muscle mass - especially upper body muscle mass - to do. 
Nonmechanized warfare, ditto.

So you want sons to push the ox-plow and sons to wield a sword.

"Never judge a book by its movie."

http://idiotgrrl.livejournal.com/





> Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2008 21:48:11 -0500
> From: hobbyd at newpaltz.edu
> To: brin-l at mccmedia.com
> Subject: Re: Polygamy
> 
> 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?  : )
> 
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