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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) by Anal Pumpernickel on Thursday October 29 2015, @01:56AM
And yet gender imbalances could indeed lead to an uptick in those kinds of decisions being made, and become a public policy concern.
Then that's a problem with those people, even if I were to accept such an idea (and frankly, I am highly skeptical of any research measuring subjective issues like these); it cannot be blamed on allowing people to make choices for themselves regarding what kind of relationships they want to enter into. People are responsible for their own decisions, and ultimately, freedom is what matters.
I also like how one of the articles implies that remaining unmarried will raise the risks of "anti-social" and violent behavior, as if marriage is some magical thing that solves problems. Being in a relationship doesn't mean you will or plan to get married; it's entirely a nonsensical social ritual with some undeserved legal benefits and magical thinking attached to it. What they were probably trying to say (I hope) is that they can't find good candidates to get into relationships with.
So yes, while I cannot deny the possibility that societies with gender imbalances *could* be more susceptible to producing individuals who choose to take/do take harmful actions because of said gender imbalances, it's ultimately a meaningless observation to me because there is nothing that can reasonably be done. Or at least, there is nothing to be done about this one person with multiple partners 'issue'; China's policies are predictably unjust because they greatly infringe upon individual liberties, so they should be scrapped.