Indeed, Siberia today is suffering such an acute “man shortage” (due in part to massive rates of alcoholism) that both men and women have lobbied the Russian parliament to legalize polygamy. In 2009, The Guardian cited Russian politicians’ claims that polygamy would provide husbands for “10 million lonely women.” In endorsing polygamy, these women, particularly those in remote rural areas without running water, may be less concerned with loneliness than with something more pragmatic: help with the chores. Caroline Humphrey, a Cambridge University anthropologist who has studied the region, said women supporters believed the legalization of polygamy would be a “godsend,” giving them “rights to a man’s financial and physical support, legitimacy for their children, and rights to state benefits.”
Sorry, I shouldn’t have just stated a claim without some evidence.
Here are some examples of semi-obvious statistical manipulation happening in the Chinese census data. I don’t necessarily agree with all of their conclusions (e.g., they assume that the One Child Policy applies to everyone), but there are enough signs of tampering for my taste.
Interesting. If the sex ratio at birth is that high but the sex ratio among the population is that close to 1, what becomes of those extra males who are born?
Possible additional hypotheses: the reason there are more men born than women is because of selective abortions. If the selection pressure for having males is stronger in rural areas/ among the poor (where economics factors make it substantially better to have sons than daughters), and the poor have a higher mortality rate, then you would expect to see an evening-out. (It may be difficult to find good data on this, but I haven’t tried)
You may also find that men are more likely to emigrate, and if China has net emigration, then that would reduce the number of men overall. (There are other possibilities that rely on emigration, obviously. This seems possibly the most likely. Some research would probably be able to verify this)
I am told this relationship style (polygynous with multiple households) is common in Latin America, and I do know several males there who have engaged in it. These males are middle-class—doctors and the like. Polygyny also occurs in other Western cultures, although more covertly, in the form of the prestigious man and his “bit on the side” (who is usually non-reproductive, monogamous and hoping to oust the current alpha female—in the absence of contraception this would probably end up with multiple households). So I’m inclined to think it happens whenever there are massive power inequalities both between males (such that a woman is better off with a fraction of the resources of a wealthy man than with all the resources of a poor man) - and between males and females (such that wealthy men are better off “collecting” multiple poor women than marrying one wealthy one).
It’s probably hard to answer that accurately. I’ve read arguments about how commonplace polygamy and harems were and they usually go like this:
a) Old sources rarely take interest in the lives of common men, but we know that society tolerated multiple wifes and households in extraordinary people.
b) Household requires wealth. More households require more wealth.
c) Common men could support one household at most, if any.
d) Monogamy was de-facto standard (for economic reasons).
It’s probably hard to answer that accurately. I’ve read arguments about how commonplace polygamy and harems were and they usually go like this:
I’ve heard that absolute rulers liked to keep everyone else down, to cement their own position. This often involved limiting the number of wives other men could have, and limiting how closely they could marry (oftentimes the emperor would ban cousin marriage for everyone else, but then marry his own cousins and sisters, to prevent having to lose anything by way of dowry).
I don’t think it’s ever been common in that it was practiced by commoners. The ratio of men to women has always been such that most men can only have at most one wife. But there have been cultures such as the Aztecs and Egyptians where polygamy was practiced among the nobility.
Honest question: has this ever been common? All the cases you list are “king” of their time and place.
I thought you were going to point out that adultery was the classical way of having multiple partners...
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/11/all-the-single-ladies/8654/?single_page=true
Well, there is woman shortage in China, so...
By this much, in case anyone else is interested in checking.
Chinese census data is notoriously unreliable.
I can believe that. The World Factbook has different figures, but they are in the same direction. I don’t know where they get their data from, though.
Sorry, I shouldn’t have just stated a claim without some evidence.
Here are some examples of semi-obvious statistical manipulation happening in the Chinese census data. I don’t necessarily agree with all of their conclusions (e.g., they assume that the One Child Policy applies to everyone), but there are enough signs of tampering for my taste.
Interesting. If the sex ratio at birth is that high but the sex ratio among the population is that close to 1, what becomes of those extra males who are born?
In most countries, there are more women than men, because women live longer. (Some evidence: http://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:UKDemographics-Age.svg )
Possible additional hypotheses: the reason there are more men born than women is because of selective abortions. If the selection pressure for having males is stronger in rural areas/ among the poor (where economics factors make it substantially better to have sons than daughters), and the poor have a higher mortality rate, then you would expect to see an evening-out. (It may be difficult to find good data on this, but I haven’t tried)
You may also find that men are more likely to emigrate, and if China has net emigration, then that would reduce the number of men overall. (There are other possibilities that rely on emigration, obviously. This seems possibly the most likely. Some research would probably be able to verify this)
I am told this relationship style (polygynous with multiple households) is common in Latin America, and I do know several males there who have engaged in it. These males are middle-class—doctors and the like. Polygyny also occurs in other Western cultures, although more covertly, in the form of the prestigious man and his “bit on the side” (who is usually non-reproductive, monogamous and hoping to oust the current alpha female—in the absence of contraception this would probably end up with multiple households). So I’m inclined to think it happens whenever there are massive power inequalities both between males (such that a woman is better off with a fraction of the resources of a wealthy man than with all the resources of a poor man) - and between males and females (such that wealthy men are better off “collecting” multiple poor women than marrying one wealthy one).
It’s probably hard to answer that accurately. I’ve read arguments about how commonplace polygamy and harems were and they usually go like this:
a) Old sources rarely take interest in the lives of common men, but we know that society tolerated multiple wifes and households in extraordinary people.
b) Household requires wealth. More households require more wealth.
c) Common men could support one household at most, if any.
d) Monogamy was de-facto standard (for economic reasons).
Hope this helps.
I’ve heard that absolute rulers liked to keep everyone else down, to cement their own position. This often involved limiting the number of wives other men could have, and limiting how closely they could marry (oftentimes the emperor would ban cousin marriage for everyone else, but then marry his own cousins and sisters, to prevent having to lose anything by way of dowry).
I don’t think it’s ever been common in that it was practiced by commoners. The ratio of men to women has always been such that most men can only have at most one wife. But there have been cultures such as the Aztecs and Egyptians where polygamy was practiced among the nobility.