
Monogamy reduces major social problems of polygamist cultures (2012) - networked
http://news.ubc.ca/2012/01/23/monogamy-reduces-major-social-problems-of-polygamist-cultures/
======
NTDF9
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.

~~~
erikpukinskis
> Men want youthful, beautiful women

> women want strong, resourceful men

Ugh.

~~~
Lawtonfogle
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?

------
RyanRies
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?

~~~
beccasanchez
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.

~~~
marknutter
> 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.

~~~
Lawtonfogle
A woman making 10K and a woman making 100K will both face social pressure
against dating a guy making 80% of what they do, since the pressure is about
the relevant income and not the total income. So this means that the more
women make, the bigger this problem becomes because it drives up what is
considered a rich enough guy, even if there wasn't the other problem of the
wealth gap growing.

------
tosseraccount
The real paper:
[http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/royptb/367/15...](http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/royptb/367/1589/657.full.pdf)

(the source material about which the article is written )

~~~
cba9
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."

------
AdrianRossouw
> 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
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)?

~~~
dragonwriter
> 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.)

------
Lawtonfogle
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.)

------
stcredzero
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.

~~~
dragonwriter
> 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.

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

------
narrator
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?

------
Camillo
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
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).

~~~
randyrand
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.

~~~
venomsnake
When the black males spend their time in prison - you have serious competition
for the ones that are out.

It is not polygamy/andry, it is an act of desperation on the women's side to
have any kind of economic support. When the social net is thin or unexistent -
even if it means risking to have another kid. Add to the fact that poor people
are the most restricted with their access to contraception and abortion. And
you have a self perpetuating mess instead of social fabric.

~~~
flubert
But which is the cause, and which is the effect? Could it be that welfare
benefits have reduced the necessity for a woman to hold on to a man for
financial support, so these men are now "adrift" and more likely to end up
incarcerated? It might be interesting to look at welfare benefits and
incarceration rates before and after 1964.

~~~
venomsnake
The benefits are not the problem - you have a lot more generous benefits in
Western Europe and UK and still they have lower incarceration rates than US.
If they were the cause - the problem in Europe will be a lot worse.

It is the other way around - remove the jobs from a community, men turn to
crime - initiate "War on drugs" \- and you have a positive loopback mechanism.
That is multi generational.

~~~
flubert
>The benefits are not the problem - you have a lot more generous benefits in
Western Europe and UK and still they have lower incarceration rates than US.

...That doesn't seem to me to be a proper control population.

------
danharaj
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.

------
CrimsnBlade
>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
Concubinage, harems and the like were quite common.

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

------
gregjwild
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.

------
bronz
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.

------
littletimmy
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.

~~~
marknutter
> 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?

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

~~~
stuxnet79
But Halle Berry has to pay child support to all four of her former hubbies.

------
snipethunder
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.

