

One wife for 2-3 brothers: Polyandry custom fading in India - credo
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/17/world/asia/17polyandry.html

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weeksie
Interesting. I've just finished reading Sex At Dawn which explores human
sexuality from an evo-psych point of view, particularly the link between us
and Bonobos.

I have a healthy amount of skepticism about most evo-psych but the book made a
very well argued point about the natural state of humanity being non-
monogamous, and that early hunter-gatherer societies were mostly non-
monogamous, one variant being the polyandrous kind of relationships described
in the article. Though most of the examples had a more free-ranging variant,
similar to Bonobo groups where there were very few rules about who slept with
whom, regardless of marital status.

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hugh3
Matt Ridley's _The Red Queen_ also discusses this particular culture, being
one of the extremely small number of polyandrous (one wife, multiple husbands)
cultures ever known to have existed, in contrast to the extremely large number
of polygamous (one husband, multiple wives) cultures. Interestingly, in the
small number of cultures where it does exist, the men are always brothers --
presumably this is the only way to get the situation to work without the men
killing each other and/or children which they suspect to not be theirs.

I haven't read Sex At Dawn, but human mating really has very little in common
with bonobo mating. The human drive to pair-bond is actually incredibly strong
(even in polygamous cultures the man almost always has one primary wife), and
if I recall correctly, nearly unique among mammals (though common among
birds).

~~~
weeksie
Actually that's what made Sex at Dawn so interesting, they explore a number of
hunter-gatherer societies (Amazon, Africa, China . . . ) and they are
predominantly non-monogamous. They might have the concept of marriage, but
often it won't be something that is recognizable when compared to the typical
modern view. I.e. the marriage ceremony includes having sex with all of the
men in the village.

They go on to make a very strong argument about the similarity between us and
Bonobos. As I said before, I'm not sure I buy everything but they made a very
strong argument.

And yeah, monogamy almost never occurs in nature. Even penguins who are
supposedly monogamous only stick together long enough to have kids, then they
rejoin the dating pool.

~~~
hugh3
If we really had much in common with bonobos, we wouldn't have a concept of
marriage at all. Everybody would be willing to mate with everybody at all
times; whereas humans only want to mate with people they're attracted to.

The mere fact that men care whether their sex partners are good-looking tells
us that pair bonding is pretty deeply ingrained in our psyches. While females
have a stronger incentive to make sure the men they mate with are of the
highest quality (since they could be stuck carrying and caring for their kid
for a long time), men invest little in mating so in the absence of pair
bonding should be willing to mate with _any_ female unless they expect to find
a better female in the next few hours. Instead, men tend to be picky about the
physical characteristics of the women they're willing to mate with.

I think the conclusion of The Red Queen on this subject was that humans are
somewhere between monogamous and polygamous; men are polygamous when they can
get away with it (i.e. when they're powerful enough to get away with taking
more than their fair share of women) and monogamous when they can't. Women
have little desire to have multiple husbands, but do want to mate with the
best quality men, so will often marry lower-quality men but have affairs with
higher-quality ones.

Strict monogamy no, but pair bonding as a deep-seated instict yes.

~~~
weeksie
The point the book makes is that as we transferred from foraging to farming
the entire dynamic shifted. As hunter-gatherers there was not competition for
resources and it didn't matter who the genetic father of a child was. In most
foraging societies today people don't care about paternity and treat all the
children in the village as their own. In several Amazonian tribes they believe
that children are made from an accumulation of semen in the mother and
husbands often offer their wives to other people in the village.

The shift to farming meant that population density increased and competition
for goods meant that wealth began to concentrate. With that there was a reason
to ensure paternity. So yes we made a shift, but looking at our existence for
the majority of the time that we've existed as a species we can see why we
have always had a very tough time with monogamy.

Also, the idea that women have little desire to have multiple husbands is not
true at all. Women are just as promiscuous as men are and when given the
freedom are more than willing. Again, I highly recommend Sex at Dawn because
the views that you're expressing are the exact ones that it addresses point by
point.

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w1ntermute
So what happens to the "extra" women?

~~~
whyenot
Missing women of Asia <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_women_of_Asia>

~~~
hugh3
But in a society where women are so valuable that they need to be shared,
what's the incentive for female infanticide?

Is it possible that many of the women disappeared into harems of the nobility?

~~~
avar
The women are valuable to grown men, they're not valuable to the parents that
have to raise them. That's where the infanticide comes from.

~~~
DilipJ
It's very sad. In fact, the only state in India where there are more women
than men (which is the natural state in most everywhere in the world) is
Kerala, the state I'm from. I believe this is because the state has been run
by the Communists for most of its post-independant history (which has also
resulted in a 99% female literacy rate, again by far the highest in India).

Sometimes we forget about the social benefits communism has provided in
certain parts of the world. I have no doubt, for example, that Afghanistan
would be far healthier, wealthier and more advanced today if the Russians were
not driven out in the 80s.

~~~
jarek
This is an important point, but I think Afghanistan as an example is a bit
misguided. Home-grown (as much as possible) and home-governing communists are
usually going to do a much better job than a colonial government of any
political orientation, which is what I fear Afghanistan would have ended up
as.

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karlzt
I would like to know of a polygynous or polyandrous hacker
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1523224>

~~~
thrown1
I created a throwaway account to reply. I'm not even sure this topic is Hacker
News but hopefully I can add some insight. I'm a regular contributor here.

Where to start? I'm male, around 30 years old, American, raised Christian, not
active in the religion. I was fairly awkward with women and people in general
when I was younger, but I put myself through lots of experiences, learned a
lot, and eventually became much more social, though I'm still a natural
introvert.

I'm seeing women in a few different places. I have one regular girlfriend
where we meet during the high ovulating part of her cycle each month, which
starts 14 days from the first day of her period. We have our first kid's names
picked out. I have another two or three women that are very important to me.
All know, though I go light on details to hopefully avoid jealousy.

Thinking about how to set up homes, schooling, and parenting is difficult. I
study a lot to learn about it. I intend to support all my children and to grow
my family slowly as I can afford to provide. I work a lot, and I try to work
smart in addition to hard. I do a mix of work with steady pay and with upside.

All my closest friends know, roughly 3/4ths of them approve. My parents know,
they don't approve at all. I'm not sure when I'd go public with this: Just
like being gay 100 years ago, it'd break a lot of potential opportunities and
meet lots of scorn and criticism by people. I have some professional
acquaintances on here who probably won't recognize this. A couple close
friends are here too and will likely recognize this is me.

If you have any questions, go ahead and I'll reply when I've got a break in a
little bit. I've thought about this extensively over a great many years. Also,
if anyone has any bad reactions, or criticisms, or warnings, or think this is
bad, then I invite you to share those as well. Actually, it'd be helpful to me
in gauging people's reactions, so all are welcome to ask or respond if they're
curious.

~~~
starkfist
How is this different than being a dude from the trailer park or ghetto who
has 4 kids with 4 different baby mommas?

~~~
thrown1
When you have a family, you can do it with planning, foresight, and an ability
to provide for your children and raise them well. Or you can do it without
those things, which is usually what happens in the situation you described.

So having a family this way is different from a trailer park the same that a
normal couple planning to have 4 kids together that they can afford to provide
for differs from a trailer park couple having 4 kids they didn't think about
having, weren't ready for, and can't provide adequately for.

~~~
starkfist
It still sounds stupid to me, but good luck.

