Monogamy reduces major social problems of polygamist cultures (2012)

http://news.ubc.ca/2012/01/23/monogamy-reduces-major-social-problems-of-polygamist-cultures/

by networked • 11 years ago

54 70 11 years ago

news.ubc.ca

In cultures that permit men to take multiple wives, the intra-sexual competition that occurs causes greater levels of crime, violence, poverty and gender inequality than in societies that institutionalize and practice monogamous marriage.

Wouldn't that just be any culture that has a significantly offset male-female ratio?

ap3• 11 years ago

In a specific cohort lets say age 18-35 - is the only thing that matters for this study "access" to women not how many women a man can married?

Wonder what the polygamy male-female ratio is compared to current societies with skewed ratios (CN / IN)?

beccasanchez4• 11 years ago

By "access" are you just referring to prostitution?

dragonwriter10• 11 years ago

In a specific cohort lets say age 18-35 - is the only thing that matters for this study "access" to women not how many women a man can married?

No. What seems to matter in the study is whether men have acceptable marriage prospects. (It'd be interesting to see, in that context, whether permitting same-sex marriage reinforces the effect observed and further reduces the same problems. It'd also be interesting to see, as marriage itself becomes less of an expectation, whether the effect is more from men being married -- in which case denormalizing marriage would be expected to reverse the benefits -- or whether the effect is more from men not being alienated by being unable to meet a social expectation of marriage -- in which case denormalizing marriage would be expected to reinforce the benefits.)

Shivetya• 11 years ago

My question would be, does this behavior hold up regardless of the culture's average income level? Surely some of the cultures are doing this because the poverty level is great.

sarcasm, polygamy and monogamy have the same major social problem, one spouse too many.

dragonwriter10• 11 years ago

Wouldn't that just be any culture that has a significantly offset male-female ratio?

A significantly-greater-than-1.0 male-to-female ratio would be a different cause of the same problem; polygyny produces it even without that ratio difference. (Polyandry would seem, in principle, to offset it, but there aren't lots of historical examples of that to study.)

RyanRies• 11 years ago

How do we know which one is the cause and which one is the effect? Or that it's not just yet another case of correlation mistaken for causation? Do more intense levels of gender inequality lead to polygamous marriage, or does polygamous marriage lead to more intense levels of gender inequality?

dozzie• 11 years ago

Or neither, because both are results of an underlying cause?

beccasanchez4• 11 years ago

It has nothing to do with gender equality. It has to do with economic inequality between males.

Economic inequality between males means more and more women are competing for a smaller supply of wealthy males.

Increased demand for top males leads to gender inequality as more and more women compete for a smaller pool of rich men, reducing the bargaining power of every individual woman and increasing the bargaining power of the few males who are marriage material.

Increased demand for top males leads to polygamy and other polygamous arrangements such as mistresses.

analyst74• 11 years ago

It's not just inequality between males, but also the wellness of poor people.

If people worry less about starvation, they will put less emphasis on potential partner's financial status.

marknutter2• 11 years ago

Economic inequality between males means more and more women are competing for a smaller supply of wealthy males. Increased demand for top males leads to gender inequality as more and more women compete for a smaller pool of rich men, reducing the bargaining power of every individual woman and increasing the bargaining power of the few males who are marriage material.

I don't see how any of this holds up in today's society where women are earning just as much as men, and in some relationships, more.

angmarsbane• 11 years ago

This assumes the females are completely dependent on the wealth of the males and I think this is less common than it has been in the past. Take the economic dependency out of the equation and female choice is much broader.

I think also, if wealth was the most important factor wouldn't it make sense for one female to have multiple male partners contributing? That would reduce the need to compete for 1 economically strong partner.

carsongross2• 11 years ago

Reduced male fighting over mates, males having relative certainty over paternity and, therefore, increased genetic interest in participating in the raising of children turns out to be useful for building a civilization.

The causality is obvious, given a bit of reflection.

danharaj2• 11 years ago

increased genetic interest

This only makes sense if you think the individual is the primary site of selection pressure. It need not be. In fact, it probably isn't. Genes compete and cooperate with each other across populations. An example of selection pressure that is supported beyond the interest of one individual's reproductive success is the gay uncle hypothesis: Kin selection means that genes that favor a group's reproduction while dooming an individual member's chances can be successful.

In a social species like Homo Sapiens it is far too naive to examine fitness at the level of individuals. Our fitness is a function on ensembles of human beings, not just individuals. How the fitness of an individual and the groups they belong to are related is deep and fascinating.

Cooperation and collectivism are as much our essence as competition and individualism. There is no dichotomy between them. We are related to both Chimpanzees and Bonobos.

Anyway, this relates to your reasoning in this way: A group of human beings who freely procreate with each other and maximizing paternal uncertainty maximize their mutual interest. Such a reproductive strategy strongly selects for behaviors that maximize group cohesion and mutuality.

If we assume a reproductive strategy, the set of behaviors and their underlying genetics gain fitness relative to that reproductive strategy. A reproductive strategy that emphasizes the propagation of individual's genes specifically works well with genes that favor individualistic behavior while a reproductive strategy that emphasizes the propagation of a coherent population's genes works well with genes that favor collectivist behavior.

The converse implication holds as well. The population of human beings and the genes that are distributed amongst it are not driven by one master impulse, but instead ebb and flow according to external and purely human pressures. If a dictatorship arose tomorrow and instituted collective breeding, that would be quite a tumultuous change in pressures for individualism and against collectivism. Human nature is in a non-linear feedback loop.

Take a coherent set of behaviors and the genes that support them. Take another set that are at odds with those behaviors. You can ask how those evolve as if they were competing as organisms. There are no clean lines drawn in biology. Genes propagate and evolve, organisms propagate and evolve, populations of organisms propagate and evolve, ecosystems propagate and evolve, behaviors propagate and evolve.

So what I'm trying to say in a long-winded way is that your focus on individual interest is much too narrow and misses the forest for the trees.

Camillo• 11 years ago

Would the authors venture to make a prediction on what will happen as the US moves away from monogamy?

Edit: I'm not talking about moving towards poligamy. I'm talking about moving away from monogamous marriage in general.

To quote from the article: According to Henrich, monogamy’s main cultural evolutionary advantage over polygyny is the more egalitarian distribution of women, which reduces male competition and social problems.

It seems obvious to me that this not a specific disadvantage of polygyny, but a specific advantage of monogamy. The state of nature, without marriage, also ought to produce a less "egalitarian distribution of women".

blisterpeanuts• 11 years ago

Is the U.S. moving away from monogamy?

I'm not against polygamy or polyandry, but I don't see a trend in the near term.

On the other hand, we've long had a tradition of traditional married couples where the man keeps a mistress on the side, usually in secret (though secrets don't tend to last very long).

randyrand4• 11 years ago

No exactly the same, but it is becoming more common for women in the United States to have children to multiple different men in quick succession. Definitely a form of polygamy.

Particularly of note in poverty stricken communities and the African American community which also happen to have many social problems. Its an interesting theory worth looking more into IMO.

dragonwriter10• 11 years ago

I'm not against polygamy or polyandry

Pedantic, perhaps, but while its generally acceptable to use "polygamy" to mean "polygyny" when you aren't discussing "polyandry" (because virtually all real-world polygamy is polygyny), if you are explicitly discussing both forms, its should be "polygyny and polyandry", "polygamy" includes both.

On the other hand, we've long had a tradition of traditional married couples where the man keeps a mistress on the side, usually in secret (though secrets don't tend to last very long).

Its really weird to call monogamous marriages "traditional" when comparing them to the polygynous marriages, since while the latter have fallen out of favor progressively in the last several centuries, they have quite a long tradition pretty much everywhere.

That said, its actually in many places a long tradition for kept mistresses, particularly of powerful men, to be fairly open.

Analemma_• 11 years ago

I don't know that the United States is "moving away from monogamy". I've certainly read more about polygamous relationships lately, but I think that's a consequence of the greater visibility afforded by the Internet, and the decreasing stigmatization of such relationships making people more likely to be open about it. I would want to see some hard evidence before just saying that polygamy is actually increasing in frequency though; I suspect it's no more or less prevalent than it ever was.

sliverstorm• 11 years ago

It does seem to be moving away from, or at least clinging less tightly to, lifelong monogamy and growing more tolerant of serial monogamy.

dragonwriter10• 11 years ago

The US isn't moving away from monogamy (in the sense of this study, as the only formally-recognized form of marriage.)

Its arguably moving toward marriage itself being less of an expectation, but its not clear how that relates to the study.

iofj• 11 years ago

Strictly speaking not true. Monogamous marriage is the only kind of marriage that can be started in the US. The US does, however, recognize non-monogamous marriages.

Lawtonfogle6• 11 years ago

It probably relates because the marriages themselves don't matter, it is the family that forms and the impacts that has on individuals that do. Thus if you had some society which allowed only monogamy but also allowed concubines, you would likely see the same issues as caused by polygamy. Or if you had a society that didn't do marriage at all, but the relationships that formed tended to be greater towards polygamy than monogamy. (You can also have the reverse, polyandry, but this study doesn't seem to look into those societies to see how they differ from monogamous and polygamous ones.)

tosseraccount• 11 years ago

The real paper: http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/royptb/367/15...

(the source material about which the article is written )

cba9• 11 years ago

How pleasantly surprising to see an official link which is the fulltext as well. I'll just quote the abstract to entice people into reading it:

"The anthropological record indicates that approximately 85 per cent of human societies have permitted men to have more than one wife (polygynous marriage), and both empirical and evolutionary considerations suggest that large absolute differences in wealth should favour more polygynous marriages. Yet, monogamous marriage has spread across Europe, and more recently across the globe, even as absolute wealth differences have expanded. Here, we develop and explore the hypothesis that the norms and institutions that compose the modern package of monogamous marriage have been favoured by cultural evolution because of their group-beneficial effects—promoting success in inter-group competition. In suppressing intrasexual competition and reducing the size of the pool of unmarried men, normative monogamy reduces crime rates, including rape, murder, assault, robbery and fraud, as well as decreasing personal abuses. By assuaging the competition for younger brides, normative monogamy decreases (i) the spousal age gap, (ii) fertility, and (iii) gender inequality. By shifting male efforts from seeking wives to paternal investment, normative monogamy increases savings, child investment and economic productivity. By increasing the relatedness within households, normative monogamy reduces intra-household conflict, leading to lower rates of child neglect, abuse, accidental death and homicide. These predictions are tested using converging lines of evidence from across the human sciences."

snipethunder• 11 years ago

I feel that this is almost an Tautology, I can also say "Polygamy reduces major social problems of monogamist cultures" and it is also true because the two are exclusive to each other.

CrimsnBlade• 11 years ago

Our goal was to understand why monogamous marriage has become standard in most developed nations in recent centuries, when most recorded cultures have practiced polygyny

I had no idea that the majority of older cultures practiced this. I'm no history buff either though. Still, that's very surprising to me for some reason.

creshal• 11 years ago

Concubinage, harems and the like were quite common.

The reverse, polyandry, also saw occasional practice, like in pre- and early Islamic Iran.

littletimmy2• 11 years ago

I wonder how this study applies to polyamory cultures like the one ours is becoming, where marriage is weakened as an institution but people take on multiple partners. It is likely that as top men take on more women, we'll run into the same problems that polygamist cultures face.

marknutter2• 11 years ago

It is likely that as top men take on more women, we'll run into the same problems that polygamist cultures face.

What about top women taking on more men?

littletimmy2• 11 years ago

For various reasons (biological and cultural) that seems to happen less often than the reverse. But certainly that would be one way out I suppose.

Lawtonfogle6• 11 years ago

For what ever reason you want to speculate, this doesn't seem to happen to enough of a degree to counter out the extent the reverse is happening.

bitwize• 11 years ago

Women tend not to "take on" men. They attach themselves to one and fuck others as the opportunity arises.

danharaj2• 11 years ago

Note that this is not a comparison between monogamy and polyamory, where the bonding relationship is many-to-many, not one-to-one or one-to-many.

gregjwild• 11 years ago

I can't help but wonder if this is a case of correlation != causation.

I'm thinking particularly because the focus is on patriarchal, unequal and heavily stratified societies. That makes me wonder if it would make for a different study if it compared with gender neutral polyamorous societies with many-to-many relationships. I'm not aware that such societies exist in socially significant volumes outside of small groupings though. Still, it smacks a little of Eurocentricism.

stcredzero3• 11 years ago

If there are, "significantly higher levels rape, kidnapping, murder, assault, robbery and fraud in polygynous cultures" and going to monogamy reduces these, then I wonder what happens if we turn that dial even further? What happens when society moves towards polyandry?

Polyandry had particular high logistical costs for most of our history, because of childbirth. However, birth control technology has developed to the point where such arrangements are now practical. My current girlfriend and various women I knew in college have reported to me encounter frequencies of 3X per day during their 20's, along with their male partners at the time basically complaining of that rate being "unsustainable." It may well be possible for certain women to be able to sustain polyandrous relationships, and for them to benefit from such relationships while acting as a moderating force in society. (The "Attila" stories by Antonio Sequra and Jose Ortiz have a character who engages in this arrangement in a post apocalyptic world. In the stories, the polyandrous arrangement also serves as a small military force, highly motivated to protect its leader. These stories are probably NSFW, so no links posted here.)

Oddly enough, a there is a very "easy" legal/social framework for allowing the establishment for what is effectively a "loosely bound" polyandry: legalized prostitution. Of course, "easy" is in quotes, because, while the legal framework would be very straightforward, the political and cultural barriers to passing the enabling legislation are huge. Also, only a subset of the activity enabled by such legislation could be fairly called a "loosely bound polyandry."

EDIT: If we note the prevalent pattern of human behavior, humans are pretty much "serially monogamous" -- where our attentions are mostly, but not exclusively, given to one particular partner at a time. However, the state of nature seems to indicate a pattern of having secondary and tertiary partners or transitory dalliances as well. Given the availability of effective birth control and mechanisms for preventing the spread of sexually transmitted disease, we are probably overdue for a reshaping of societal norms to better fit the actual historical behavior of "monogamous" people.

EDIT: I was informed that polyandry was practiced, so was possible before modern birth control.

dragonwriter10• 11 years ago

Polyandry was not possible for most of our history, because of the logistics of childbirth.

Logistics of childbirth don't make polyandry as an institution impossible; the societies in which polyandry, fraternal or otherwise, was practiced have not generally been modern societies or otherwise especially relieved of the natural logistics of childbirth.

stcredzero3• 11 years ago

I've corrected this. My main point still stands even when "possible" is replaced with "lower cost."

NTDF9• 11 years ago

IMO, humans, male or female, seek the best mate. "Best" is subjective but usually easy to understand. Men want youthful, beautiful women whereas women want strong, resourceful men.

In enforcing monogamy, we ensured that male got what they wanted (a young woman) and now, that male can focus his attention on work. This worked well for women too (if they had a choice of male) since they now have a partner as well. Adultery was looked down upon to preserve the "sanctity" of this 1:1 relationship. This also kept men working hard to build the society (since they didn't have to deal with family issues much) and women preserved morality and guarded home upbringing.

Today, since adultery/serial monogamy/polyandry/polygamy etc. is a joke and widely "accepted", there is no incentive to get married. So many 18-35 waste their youthful lives just dating, dating, meeting jerks, partying, jumping from partner to partner....instead of focusing on building a REAL stable relationship.

By early 30s, most folks are sick of dating and all illusions of love are gone.

Monogamy is not practical without heavy penalties on non-monogamous relationships.

dragonwriter10• 11 years ago

In enforcing monogamy, we ensured that male got what they wanted (a young woman) and now, that male can focus his attention on work. This worked well for women too (if they had a choice of male) since they now have a partner as well. Adultery was looked down upon to preserve the "sanctity" of this 1:1 relationship.

Adultery has been "looked down on" (to put it mildly) for a lot longer than monogamy has been a norm.

erikpukinskis2• 11 years ago

Men want youthful, beautiful women
women want strong, resourceful men

Ugh.

Lawtonfogle6• 11 years ago

Are you against the notion that each gender generally has different characteristics they prefer or just the simplistic nature in which the parent comment expressed that notion?

stcredzero3• 11 years ago

Monogamy is not practical without heavy penalties on non-monogamous relationships.

If by "monogamy" one means having one stable primary relationship at a time while having dalliances with secondary/tertiary partners and transitory partners, then "monogamy" seems to fit the baseline human sexual behavior for the majority of people, across cultures, and across history.

If society looked at the actual data, and adjusted to the patterns of behavior people actually exhibit -- serial monogamy with possible secondary partners -- then I suspect there would be more scope and opportunity for building stable real relationships. There would be less pressure on keeping the strictures of such a monogamy. It would be easier for people to remain "faithful." There would be less drama. There would be less sexual dissatisfaction and boredom.

(My data: My previous relationship was with someone "poly." My current relationship is traditionally monogamous, to which I do adhere.)

Lawtonfogle6• 11 years ago

The way I see it:

Polygamy:

Some men having a chance at a huge family. Most women having a chance at a family, but with a shared husband. Many men having no chance at a family at all.

Monogamy:

Most men having a chance at a family. Most women having a chance at a family.

Now consider that the more one has to lose, the better behaved one is. When men have a chance for a family, they'll do what is needed to make the attempt for a family (normally being productive members of society), after which they get far more needs met than when alone (consider that loneliness is quite dangerous for a person) and they likely have more to lose (especially if they have children). Thus they are more behaved.

But in a polygamous society, there is far less of a chance. So more men decide to not play by the rules. They will seek out more dangerous means to meet their immediate needs.

All this being said, it isn't the marriage that matters. It is the family that does. A society that only allows monogamy on paper, but which allows a polygamous marriages, and where a divide begins to exist meaning that you have many men without a chance of having a family will have the same issues.

Also, I'm not to sure what happens when many women don't have a chance for a family. While one might think it would work the same, there are a few key differences. A man can be responsible for multiple simultaneous pregnancies, but a woman cannot. A woman has, historically, had a level of assurance of the legitimacy of their children that a man does not, and on average men tend to be more physically powerful than women. Also of note is that those last two factors stop being a significant difference with technology (paternity tests and guns being respective examples), so historic data may not fit what trends we will see in a technologically advanced society. (To say nothing of technology increasingly being able to meet a person's needs, which will increasingly make it harder to plot future events based on past data.)

narrator• 11 years ago

There's an often repeated assertion in some of the less glamorous men's forums online that in online dating, etc. The top 20% of guys in terms of looks and status get 80% of the dates while the dating demand for women of child bearing age is more evenly spread out. This would tend to be indicative of polygamy being a natural tendency, even today, if social norms did not interfere.

Has there been any research on this on okcupid data, etc?

bronz• 11 years ago

Do modern western countries even have monogamy anymore? Cheating is so widespread that I almost want to laugh at the idea of monogamous America. Perhaps polygamy is just taking the dirty, hidden aspects of a supposedly monogamous system and bringing them out in the open.

Monogamy reduces major social problems of polygamist cultures (2012)

Related Stories