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from the how-do-you-keep-multiple-wives-happy dept.
A study conducted by a team of researchers from the U.K., Tanzania and the U.S. has found an example of polygynous marriage that does not appear to be harmful to women or children. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers outline their study of people living in villages in Tanzania, and why they believe organizations such as the UN need to modify their stance on the practice to better take account of cultural practices.
Polygny is a term used to refer to marriage systems where males can have more than one wife, while polygamy refers to the actual practice of it. In this new study, the researchers looked into the question of whether a polygnynous marriage is in fact harmful to women or children as has been assumed by many in the international community. They looked at 3,500 households in villages in Tanzania, noting the occurrences of polygnynous marriage versus monogamous marriage and the standard of living for those women and children.
In looking at their data, they found that first wives—women who were the first to marry a man with several wives, tended to have better nutrition as did their children, than women in monogamous marriages and their children. Later wives and their children fared on average as well as monogamous wives and their children, but not as well as first wives. This, the team claims, shows that not all instances of polygynous marriage are harmful to women or children—it shows that in some cases, it can actually be a practice that women can use to better their lives and that of their children. It is a matter of wealth and the rules that govern a society—if women cannot own land or other resources, for example, or take a job, as was the case in the Tanzanian villages, they will likely do better in life if they are able to attract and marry a man with some degree of wealth, which in some cases may mean, a man with multiple wives.
How do the husbands fare?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Francis on Wednesday October 28 2015, @03:32PM
That tends not to last very long. Things that kill men off in that kind of quantity tend to eventually get to the women as well. War and famine being a couple examples. For a short period of time you can repopulate or make up the difference, but it's a band-aid fix at best if you haven't figured out how to address the problem of the shortage.
But, in no case is this a good thing for men. I'm not sure how anybody that's not a feminist could think this is good for men. Even the men that wind up with multiple wives have to do so at a premium. Survive the war and amass large amounts of resources.
The better way to look at it is probably women using men for their resources and protection. Or really, objectifying men. So, it really should be better for women in most cases. If there's such competition for men that there aren't enough to go around, creating extra demand for women by doubling or tripling up to a successful man isn't in most men's best interest.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday October 28 2015, @04:58PM
In the modern world, sure. In the bad old days women would have to have twelve or so kids to have a realistic chance of two of them surviving long enough to reproduce. 80% death rate before reproduction seems sustainable, after all that's where we came from, long enough ago. Sure the death rate probably skewed young, but relatively more men were killed trying to hunt hippos than women were killed by aggressive stalks of wheat falling on them.
(Score: 2, Informative) by DutchUncle on Wednesday October 28 2015, @05:06PM
Sorry, I think in the course of focusing on the chiild-survival rate, you ignored the death-in-childbirth rate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 28 2015, @11:18PM
Yeah, but the death-in-childbirth rate is only already used-up married (or at least spoken-for) women.