The paradox of polygamy II: Why most women benefit from polygamy and most men benefit from monogamy
Contrary to popular belief, most women benefit from polygynous society, and most men benefit from monogamous society. This is because polygynous society allows some women to share a resourceful man of high status. George Bernard Shaw (who was one of the founders of the London School of Economics and Political Science where I teach) put it best, when he observed, “The maternal instinct leads a woman to prefer a tenth share in a first rate man to the exclusive possession of a third rate one.”
Or, as the comedian Bill Maher asked his panel on his TV show Politically Incorrect on January 7, 1998, “Would you rather be the second or third wife of Mel Gibson or the only wife of Willard Scott?”, to which one of the panelists, the conservative commentator and activist Susan Carpenter McMillan, responded, “If it comes to Mel Gibson, I wouldn’t care if I was one, two, or three.” Of course, this was back when Mel Gibson was highly desirable. Substitute Matt Damon for Mel Gibson. The cast of characters changes in a decade, but the principle remains the same.
In contrast, most men benefit from monogamous society. Given a 50-50 sex ratio, monogamous society virtually guarantees a wife for every man, even a third-rate one. Under polygyny, some third-rate men may not find a wife at all, or, even if they are lucky enough to find one, their wife will not be as desirable as the one they can secure for themselves under monogamy, because under polygyny more desirable women would have become the second, third, or tenth wife of more desirable men.
The exceptions to this rule are highly desirable women, who benefit from monogamous society, and highly desirable men, who benefit from polygynous society. A highly desirable woman can marry a highly desirable man under any circumstances, but under polygyny she’d have to share her desirable husband with other women, whereas under monogamy she can monopolize him. A highly desirable man can acquire multiple wives under polygyny, but must confine himself to only one wife (albeit a highly desirable one) under monogamy.
It’s the nature of the statistical (“bell curve”) distribution, however, that most people are not extreme on either side; for example, most people are not extremely tall or extremely short, but of more or less average height. Similarly, most men and women are neither extremely desirable nor extremely undesirable. So most men benefit under monogamy, and most women benefit under polygyny.
When men imagine what living in a polygynous society might be like, they imagine themselves married to several wives. What they don’t realize, however, is that, more than likely, they would be left without any wife in a polygynous society. Polygynous marriage in a polygynous society is always limited to a minority of men. If 50% of men have two wives each, then the other 50% cannot have any wives. If 25% of men have four wives each, then the other 75% cannot have any wives. When women imagine what living in a polygynous society might be like, they imagine themselves having to share their current, no-good loser of a husband with other women. What they don’t realize is that they could be sharing Matt Damon or Bill Gates with other women.
Once we begin to look at things through the lens of evolutionary psychology and biology, they start to look quite different. Something that we previously thought was quite bizarre and morally wrong, like polygyny, begins to look quite natural and common. The perspective also gives us a new insight, like how women, not men, mostly benefit in polygynous societies.
Merrywives' Blog 
I just got done reading a story about china’s population control, And how more boys then girls are being born, And how that is creating a demand for prostitutes. And how more women are being forced in to it. So I think you need to think this out some more, Because apparently the less women there are per man the more “men” are willing to pay for it. And there are sleeze-balls who are willing to forced women in to it. But keep up the good work.
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I think that the only way a women would benifit from polygamy would be if her husband was very rich & let her do as she pleased plus if she did’nt need sex every night.Yeah a marriage of convience…..like having a permanent sugar daddy.You might even call it (legal prostitution if she is only marring for money)
Great essay. I am delighted you brought up evolutionary psychology. May I submit that the only a few things change in a legalized monogamous society vs a legalized polygamist one. The focus of jealousy is one of those things that changes. Jealousy’s focus changes from male cheating to female cheating. In monogamous societies they accommodate this by over penalizing the cheating male. In polygamist societies they accommodate this change in jealousy focus by over penalizing the cheating female. Thus I believe most things stay the same; rate of divorce, cheating, and ‘playing up’ by the female. In monogamous societies the mistress is present. And in monogamous societies the below average male is often knowingly or unknowingly cuckolded by his mate. So looking down from high above, humans inside human societies are all the same, following their same evolutionary sexual strategies (unknown to them perhaps). From above, we see that humanity has dealt with his sexual urges, social rank, and jealousies by either legalizing polygamy or legalizing monogamy, yet the behavior stays the same. What I believe is slowly happening in the USA and Europe, is a plurality of the two legal systems which historically have been incompatible. This should raise, not lower, over all sexual jealous tensions simply because there are two options for societies members. Such tension means a moral retreat into one or the other of the two morally sanctioned systems and or a enclave-balkanization social response. Yes, its unfortunate.
Unfortunately, your premise concerning what constitutes the benefits of a polygynous society over a mongonous one are entirely false. Even when looks at the birth rate of male to females of any society in any country in the world, it is always a uniform 1 to 4. In other words, 80% of any national population will consist entirely of women. These statistics are not only prevalent in every nation on Earth, but the United Nations also confirms its validity. Therefore, it has and could never be possible for a polygynous society to have those men who have wives and those who do not, simply because birth rate statistics
This fact does not deny that the natural distribution of males and females will be consistent, so that we have cities around the world where there are more men than women for instance. This unnatural distribution of the sexes is also easily seen in dating sites, where men dominate most dating sites from 4 to 1 to as high as 20 to 1. This only informs us that men see and use dating techniques far differently than what women do, who do not want to be seen as being desperate or as commodities in any society.
Now, we know that any inbalances in the male and female birth rate in any nation are purely due to social and cultural engineering, whereby there is a preference for couples to sire male children only.
Almost the entire history of man is polygynous. Monogamy is a relatively new social pratice going back 1,600 years, but only in western European societies. The majority of the world is still polygynous and the United Nations still confirms this. Outside of Europe, polygamy is still practiced by Christians – not only by Mormans – in North America, Africa and Asia.
Also, it should be in our minds that the practice of polygyny has never distorted or created social inbalances.When we look at every country which practices monogamy, whether it is West or Eastern Europe, it is observed that all national societies cannot maintain their populations, so that they are looking for ways to address “enforced” mongamous imbalances by bringing in migrants from foreign countries.
Secondly, anyone who thinks that monogamy is Christian concept is wholly deluded, because all Christian societies for the first 400 years in the ancient world were polygamous. That was until after Constantine died, when the Gnostics brought laws into place which decimated Christian polygamy. Monogamy is the product of Gnostism and not Christianity.
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