Viking Age triggered by shortage of wives?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26755692/

by Alex3917 • 18 years ago

20 32 18 years ago

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mtw• 18 years ago

if this is true, then we will see soon Chineese men behaving like conquering Vikings

(ratio of men vs women is one of the highest in the world due to single child policy)

j2d2• 18 years ago

(due to abandoning woman since they prefer men and get one child)

gruseom3• 18 years ago

(ratio of men vs women is one of the highest in the world due to single child policy)

Single child policy can hardly be the reason for that.

arockwell2• 18 years ago

Not by itself, but there's strong economic incentive for your one child to be a boy rather than a girl.

wmf• 18 years ago

No smiley needed; I've read serious predictions that China will invade neighboring countries for water and women within a few decades.

netcan3• 18 years ago

Or for women & wine

rms• 18 years ago

It seems a lot more likely that they will import water and women.

rgrieselhuber• 18 years ago

May be one reason why Japan is working so hard to develop robot women. :-)

pmorici2• 18 years ago

I've heard people cite this as a reason from Islamic terrorism as well. Since it's common to take multiple wives in religion.

netcan3• 18 years ago

It's not very common in practice though. Not enough to create demographic problems.

dimitar• 18 years ago

The marriage ceremony is expensive - especially in the Middle East. And in countries like Egypt have low economic growth and huge inflation in marriage prices, so males have to work long and hard into their 30es to get married. And they can't just get a girlfriend and marry her in a inexpensive ceremony with only a civil unions - the religious leaders made sure its illegal (they have a interest in preserving the expensive traditions, you see).

Most men in the Middle East can hardly afford a single wife. Only really, really rich men have harems.

Of course the reasons are way more complex.

I'll recommend this excellent article from Fareed Zakaria: The Politics of Rage: Why Do They Hate Us? http://fareedzakaria.com/articles/newsweek/101501_why.html

brandnewlow• 18 years ago

Well, that more or less explains a good bit of my startup motivation.

attack• 18 years ago

No kidding.

eru2• 18 years ago

Viking women:

http://deafjoke.tv/wp/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/women-2007-...

vaksel• 18 years ago

women are usually the motivation for almost all the accomplishments a man has ever achieved

helveticaman• 18 years ago

I've heard this about scientists and criminals...both desist when they get married. Not far-fetched.

stupiduser• 18 years ago

Anecdotally, it wasn't true of Einstein.

randomwalker• 18 years ago

This is discussed in Jared Diamond's book "Collapse." (A good book, although winding.) A skewed sex-ratio was definitely one of the factors, but it would be foolish to say it was the only one. In fact, one of the theses of "Collapse" is that it is almost always a combination of multiple factors that leads to major changes in a society.

Viking Age triggered by shortage of wives?

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