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posted by cmn32480 on Wednesday October 28 2015, @12:09PM   Printer-friendly
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?


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Anal Pumpernickel on Thursday October 29 2015, @10:38AM

    by Anal Pumpernickel (776) on Thursday October 29 2015, @10:38AM (#255955)

    Maybe you are concerned about this problem which may or may not exist, but even if it does exist, there is nothing that I see that can reasonably be done about it. No one is entitled to a relationship; it requires the consent of all of those involved. Furthermore, if someone wants to enter into some kind of relationship with multiple partners, and it's all consensual, forbidding that would be an attack on freedom. So while this may be concerning, I'm not sure what could even be done about it except providing mental health assistance when people request it.

    And I'm not even sure these types of relationships are common enough for this to 'cause' the problems that allegedly exist.

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