I figured I had been overfishing the GSS hole and neglecting other sources of data, so I tried out the World Values Survey. I was disappointed to find that it is much less easy to use for my purposes. At first I thought I’d investigate the gluten/lactose tolerance idea from before, but that was a no go. Then I remembered my discussion with Whiskey over polygyny in the Muslim world. The WVS has a question for how acceptable it is for a man to have more than one wife. The countries ask seem to be ones with muslim majorities (though I’m not sure about Nigeria), but they asked adherents of other religions as well. Because of their small sample sizes I’m not including them, but it was amusing to find higher percentages of Jews & Buddhists strongly agreeing than Muslims, though it is not true for the former within any country where Jews were found. Buddhists were only in Bangladesh, where both they and Hindus strongly agreed than Muslims, though counting Hindus in Saudi Arabia reduces their overall percentage strongly agreeing below that of Muslims. The question and data are below the fold. Note that red/blue colors are MEANINGLESS. I just copied a graph from a previous post and then monkeyed it into shape (which was a big time-wasting hassle). There are no means or standard deviations.
D076.- I would like to ask your personal opinion about the following issues related to relationships between men and women. To what extent do you agree or disagree with men having more than one wife? Do you strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree?
INTERVIEWER: This same style should be used in asking both questions.
It is acceptable for a man to have more than one wife
| Cells contain: -Column percent -Weighted N |
More than one wife? | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 AGREE STRONGLY |
2 AGREE |
3 NEITHER |
4 DISAGREE |
5 STRONGLY DISAGREE |
ROW TOTAL |
||
| C O U N T R Y |
Bangladesh | 1.5 ? |
3.9 ? |
12.2 ? |
48.2 ? |
34.2 ? |
100 1372 |
| Indonesia | 3.0 ? |
16.8 ? |
10.4 ? |
44.0 ? |
25.7 ? |
100 920 |
|
| Iran | 5.9 ? |
5.7 ? |
11.3 ? |
32.2 ? |
44.9 ? |
100 2407 |
|
| Iraq | 22.9 ? |
27.3 ? |
26.7 ? |
– ? |
23.1 ? |
100 1392 |
|
| Jordan | 5.7 ? |
13.8 ? |
10.2 ? |
17.0 ? |
53.3 ? |
100 1161 |
|
| Morocco | 13.9 ? |
23.7 ? |
11.0 ? |
23.5 ? |
27.9 ? |
100 1003 |
|
| Nigeria | 53.5 ? |
20.5 ? |
7.8 ? |
8.6 9.5 |
9.5 ? |
100 639 |
|
| Saudi Arabia | 20.8 ? |
21.9 ? |
26.0 ? |
16.4 ? |
14.9 ? |
100 1425 |
|
| Turkey | 5.1 ? |
10.8 ? |
28.0 ? |
56.1 ? |
– ? |
100 3286 |
|
| Egypt | 2.6 ? |
8.0 ? |
9.5 ? |
79.7 ? |
0.1 ? |
100 2820 |
|
| COL TOTAL | 9.7 ? |
13.1 ? |
16.7 ? |
40.5 ? |
20.0 ? |
100.0 16,424 |
|
| Means | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | |
| Std Devs | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | |
| Unweighted N | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | |
<td align=”left”>Nigeria</td>
<td bgcolor=”#ff9999″><strong>1.3</strong>
2</td>
<td bgcolor=”#ccffff”><strong>.6</strong>
2</td>
<td bgcolor=”#ffcccc”><strong>1.0</strong>
3</td>
<td bgcolor=”#99ffff”><strong>.0</strong>
0</td>
<td bgcolor=”#99ffff”><strong>.0</strong>
0</td>
<td><em><strong>.6</strong></em>
<em>7</em></td>
</tr>
<tr align=”right”>
My suspicions that sub-Saharan Africa is more polygamous were confirmed. Non-muslims there were more in agreement than Muslims in some other countries.
UPDATE: A lapsed Mormon guest-blogging at Volokh discusses gender imbalances in China & India, polygamy in Heinlein vs reality and whether females benefit from their increase in value caused by shortages.
June 5, 2009 at 12:05 pm
I saw an argument by a Mormon that seemed to make sense. He said it was better for one good man to have a couple of wives and treat them well, than for men and women to be matched up one to one because some men are losers and don’t deserve a wife.
Interesting idea. Assuming high quality men, intelligent, healthy, kind, hard working, loving, generous, respectful, courageous, loyal, responsible, yada, yada. You get the picture. Also assuming the opposite, the loser. Who would we favor as the father of children?
Does society benefit? Do societies that allow polygyny consider such ideas?
Since women are known to accept such arrangements, what benefits do women see in them? Please don’t tell me only idiotic or oppressed women would accept such arrangements because it doesn’t take long to prove that both true and false. Anyway polls count the opinions of idiots and the brainwashed all the time, and we aren’t offended.
Assuming that good traits are inherited, how do such arrangements affect the gene pool? Women married to the good guys. Bad guys incarcerated. My first impression is that only half of the losers (the women) could contribute to the gene pool. Over multiple generations their loser traits would be diminished, but I could be wrong.
These are the questions that come to my mind. I wonder what people who favor polygyny would think. I wonder what scientists would think. I don’t much care what knee jerk PC types would think (since I already know).
June 5, 2009 at 10:33 pm
I just updated this post linking to a lapsed Mormon discussing this issue.
As a libertarian I should favor freedom of any sort of marriage contract and I’m not willing to prohibit any. However, I’m still leery of polygamy. The societies that have it generally seem less pleasant places than monagamous ones. Women should theoretically benefit from the having the option of being the third wife of Donald Trump rather than the only wife of Bozo the Clown, but I suspect the “bare branches” of surplus males will cause problems. Are they to be killed off in war or something? I understand some small polygamous societies inside larger normal ones sometimes send out their surplus males, so that might be one way to make it work.
We should favor men who do not exhibit parasitic behaviors contributing genes to the next generation. Greg Clark claims that England emerged from the Malthusian trap because the more responsible upper middle class produced most children, while the violent aristocracy and lower class died out. I would like that same process to continue.
June 15, 2009 at 6:07 am
A minor point: a polygamist who has several wives has much less of a stake in each of his children by them, than a monogamous man has in his. Hence child mortality tends to be higher among polygamists: the alpha polygamist can afford to lose a few.
June 15, 2009 at 6:58 pm
Steve Sailer has made a similar point about sub-Saharan Africa outside of the “jealousy belt”. Fathers don’t care too much if their wives have children with other men. Maternal uncles actually devote more resources to the kids because they can be sure they are at least partly related!
June 6, 2009 at 3:07 pm
So in evo bio there’s the concept of “effective polygyny” – the degree to which male fitness variance exceeds female fitness variance (in a purely monogamous species/society, it’s 1:1). High effective polygyny (in terms of species, not as sure about societies) is correlated to all kinds of nasty things, like high sexual dimorphism (e.g. difference in body length between males and females) and male intrasexual violence (not to mention male-initiated intersexual violence).
Anyway, with effective polygyny as our guide, American society is in fact highly effectively polygynous – no multiple concurrent marriages, but male fitness variance exceeds that of females. This is mostly about “serial monogamy,” which effective polygyny over time. Male reproductive lives are longer than those of females, and men are more likely than women to take successive breeding partners (if only because age more quickly renders breeding impossible on the female side). (See, e.g., Homicide by Martin Daly and Margo Wilson, p.140 et seq.)
TGGP, what I’m getting is that your squeamishness with polygamy is related to the destructive effects of male intrasexual competition where incentive for risk is high because male fitness variance is high. But to get rid of high fitness variance, we’d have to not only have state-sponsored monogamy as we have now, but also get rid of divorce and premarital dating and even remarriage after the death of a spouse. And isn’t it highly possible that the misery involved in living in a society like that is much worse than the effects of high effective polygyny?
You seem much more willing to accept externalities for things like guns (and favor individual choice over governmental involvement) than for anything related to sex. I would respectfully propose that this is because you don’t fully grasp the hedonic cost of sexual restrictions. (I think you previously reported having no sex drive?) But perhaps you have a more rational explanation. I don’t mean to be rude.
June 6, 2009 at 6:48 pm
I think you mean “reject externalities”, although I suppose I could be accepting positive externalities (the John Lott position). My take on America is that most gun laws don’t effect crime that much. However, if we had fewer total guns it would result in fewer killings (I guess guns are just a lot more effective than other weapons) and more effective restrictions on guns. So for countries that have very few guns I think it might be wise for them to continue to restrict them.
I stated that I’m not willing to prohibit any sort of marriage contract. I suppose it’s more a norm I’d like to establish. Is it really the case that people are more miserable in monogamous societies than polygamous ones? I’d be skeptical of that. Happiness research is more Will Wilkinson’s bag and he reports that first world countries are happier. Polygamy is more acceptable in backward countries (Nigeria stands out here, for example). Happiness research also indicates that women have been getting less happy since 1960, so perhaps lack of divorce was not that misery inducing. On the other hand, easier divorce also coincides with less domestic violence and spousal murder.
What are the numbers for the “high” degree of “effective polygyny”? I believe human beings only exhibit mild sexual dimorphism. Should we expect that to increase if current trends continue?
I wouldn’t say I’m at exactly zero, but abnormally low (I also often forget to eat or sleep, have been unaware I was being rained on and didn’t realize I had shattered my elbow though I was admittedly drunk, all of which may point to some sort of dampened signaling in my brain). I’ll also admit to retaining my old ultracalvinist attitudes that could distort my view of such issues. I don’t think I’m alone in finding such kinds of societies repulsive though.
June 7, 2009 at 10:13 am
In several articles archived here David Kopel argues that liberal gun policies and higher rates of civilian gun ownership have the benefit of promoting political freedom and fending against serious government abuses including genocide. If this position is open, the question of positive and negative externalities should be broadened to take account of more than crime. It might also be noted that sexual dimorphism means that gun rights will tend to equalize the sexes where intersexual violence is at issue; when women pack heat, rape becomes riskier. Lott’s research provides support for this, though it is easy to imagine that a rape-reducing effect could be greater if more women were comfortable carrying firearms.
Steve Sailer has pointed out that the debate over polygamy is often skewed by male conceit and paternalism. I’m not interested in denying marriage contracts to anyone either, but when a polygynous social structure is normalized the practical reality of radically higher rates of intrasexual competition among banished and unlucky men may have social consequences that make liberal society impossible to sustain. I don’t think the same danger emerges under the “effective polygyny” that may exist under monogamous institutions. When stable sexual relationships are not available to a critical mass of a male population, the boys become restive and you get problems. From an EP perspective, it may be a difference of degree. But in terms of social structure, it seems like a difference of kind.
Are there historical examples of liberal societies where polygamy has been common?
On a semi-related note, I’ve often wondered about the evolutionary impact of banishment, which appears to have been common across cultures throughout history. Can anyone point me to a good paper or two?
June 7, 2009 at 10:03 pm
To play Devil’s Advocate for entrenched government, doesn’t the possibility of revolt make rulers more paranoid and vicious? A monarch whose status is recognized as legitimate through divine right doesn’t have to oppress people much, and can just sit back and let the tax money flow in. It is the most unstable countries that have the worst governance and are the most unpleasant to be in. Most revolutions don’t improve things either (I’ll even say that of our war of independence).
I’d like to reiterate that I don’t want the State to stamp out polygamy. My dispute with Wilkinson over false consciousness arose during the FLDS case, where I was also promoting David Friedman’s skeptical take. I still don’t think polygamous societies are desirable to live in and may be incompatible with what we’d call a “liberal” social order. As the Volokh post I linked to suggests, just as scarcity of labor encourages people to turn laborers into a commodity, scarcity of women encourages men to treat them like chattel and capture the “value” resulting from their scarcity. I’d also point to the “evolutionary feminism” take on history in Demonic Males (which I reviewed here). Previous systems of government were explicitly based on patriarchy. This has changed with the modern impersonal democratic/bureaucratic state. A norm of polygamy would encourage a regression towards the past. Another book that comes to mind is Albion’s Seed. The founders of the different colonial regions had plans for what they wanted their societies to be like and shaped them accordingly. Primogeniture is an obvious example. The society I want to live in is more like that of the Quakers and Puritans. Since those regions also got more immigrants, the “foot vote” agrees.
I don’t know if I could point to any papers, but through your reference to that knife-fighting dude I found his website where he linked to some youtubes of monkey fights. One of them was a british program that discussed how young male was banished from his troop by the older males and had to roam across urban Japan to find another troop. I believe different species have different customs regarding whether males or females stay with the troop (if both stay that would lead to inbreeding depression). I think in chimpanzees it is females who switch.
June 7, 2009 at 10:32 am
[…] Muslim Attitudes Towards Polygyny by Country by TGGP […]
June 7, 2009 at 2:16 pm
[…] Muslim attitudes toward polygyny by country. […]
June 13, 2009 at 8:19 pm
Hi TGGP,
I’m wondering if you could add India to the list?
Polygamy is legal there for Muslims.
The glam Muslim Bollywood crowd is known to practice polygamy.
Non-Muslims who wish to legitimize their mistresses will convert to Islam and marry their mistresses without divorcing their first wife.
Certain kinds of Hindus will live with two women while only being officially married to one. It’s up to the woman to bring charges of bigamy against the man, and he may figure that she won’t.
June 13, 2009 at 8:46 pm
Unfortunately they did not ask the question there. The WVS site doesn’t seem to be working right now, I’ll look for what questions they did ask India when that changes.