Tag Archives: monogamy

What Are the Advantages of Monogamy?

William Tucker, the author of Marriage and Civilization: How Monogamy Made Us Human, quotes extensively from Joseph Henrich of the University of British Columbia, Robert Boyd of UCLA , and Peter Richerson of UC Davis, from a published article entitled “The Puzzle of Monogamous Marriage.” The article first notes the following paradox:

The anthropological record indicates that approximately 85 per cent of human societies have permitted men to have more than one wife (polygynous marriage), and both empirical and evolutionary considerations suggest that large absolute differences in wealth should favour more polygynous marriages. Yet, monogamous marriage has spread across Europe, and more recently across the globe, even as absolute wealth differences have expanded.

The authors contend that

norms and institutions that compose the modern package of monogamous marriage have been favoured by cultural evolution because of their group-beneficial effects—promoting success in inter-group competition. In suppressing intrasexual competition and reducing the size of the pool of unmarried men, normative monogamy reduces crime rates, including rape, murder, assault, robbery and fraud, as well as decreasing personal abuses.

By assuaging the competition for younger brides, normative monogamy decreases (i) the spousal age gap, (ii) fertility, and (iii) gender inequality. By shifting male efforts from seeking wives to paternal investment, normative monogamy increases savings, child investment and economic productivity. . . . Polygynous societies engage in more warfare.

According to the authors,

The 15 per cent or so of societies in the anthropological record with monogamous marriage fall into two disparate categories: (i) small-scale societies inhabiting marginal environments with little status distinctions among males [i.e. hunter-gatherers] and (ii) some of history’s largest and most successful ancient societies.

Tucker explains what this means:

In other words , Western European, American, and East Asian societies live in relative peace and prosperity because they honor and enforce monogamous marriage, as did the earliest human societies . Meanwhile, the reason other societies remain relatively poor and plagued by internal violence is because they have reverted to polygamy and continue to practice it.

Henrich, Boyd, and Richerson go on to summarize the civilizing benefits of monogamy:

1. The pool of unattached men is reduced so that they do not form a potentially disruptive residue in society.

2. Crime is reduced since most crimes are committed by unmarried males. (In addition, longitudinal studies show that fewer crimes are committed by the same men when they marry.)

3. Political coups and factional fighting become less common because there are fewer single men willing to enlist in rebel armies.

4. Society becomes more productive because men work more when they are married.

5. Children do better because men invest in them instead of using their resources to obtain more wives.

6. Spousal relations improve because men and women are more dedicated to each other instead of merely entering an economic/ reproductive relationship.

7. Child marriages disappear and the age gap between husbands and wives narrows. There is reduced inequality between men and women and spousal abuse declines.

8. Young women are no longer hoarded and sequestered by their families in order to protect the value of the brideprice. Marriages become elective and more stable.

Which Came First, Polygamy or Monogamy? Part 2

Post Author: Bill Pratt

In part 1, we saw that monogamy was the original marital practice of ancient humans. Monogamy, however, came under attack when the hunter-gatherers came under attack.

What led to the demise of hunter-gatherers?

The problem that led to the near-extinction of hunting-and-gathering cultures was their inability to support large population densities. The “carrying capacity” of any given landscape for a hunting culture is about one person per square mile. A settled agricultural society can support anywhere up to one hundred times that. As a result, since the Neolithic Revolution of ten thousand years ago, hunting-and-gathering groups have been constantly crowded off the land by even the most primitive agriculturalists.

The concept of primitive hunter-gatherers exhibiting “cave man” like behavior toward women is actually backwards. Tucker explains that

despite the popular conception of “the Cave Man” as a fierce and uncouth barbarian who practiced “marriage by capture,” hitting women over the head and dragging them back to his lair, in fact the hunting-and-gathering lifestyle seems to be relatively peaceful and equitable. Rather it was early agriculturalists who became fierce and warlike, constantly raiding neighboring villages, engaging in headhunting, torture of enemies, and even cannibalism. . . .

And herein lies the great paradox at the beginning of visible human history. It is the earliest settled agricultural people that have become warlike while the earlier hunter-gatherers seemed much more content to pursue their hunting and live at relative peace with their neighbors. Why? Because the earliest agricultural societies reverted to polygamy after almost 5 million years in which monogamy seems to have prevailed.

What are the consequences of the Neolithic Revolution that begun in the eastern Mediterranean region about ten thousand years ago?

Nomadic hunter- gatherers began settling down in permanent encampments and gradually gave up hunting for agriculture. The hybrid grains— wheat, millet, rye— were invented and soon enough food could be grown to support larger and larger populations. This agricultural revolution also appears to have occurred in the Indus Valley and in China as well, radiating outward in each case. It still continues today as the last remaining hunting-and-gathering tribes are gathered into the folds of sedentary civilization.

What were the results as far as marriage customs and the relations between the sexes are concerned? There were two major trends, which will be the subject of most of the rest of this book:

1) As the accumulation of greater wealth became possible, inequalities became more pronounced. One obvious and readily available inequality was that a man could take more than one wife. Some societies— the vast majority of cultures, according to the anthropologists— succumbed to this pattern. Others, however, eventually legislated against it, creating the very artificial situation where, even though there may be vast differences in wealth between individuals, a man can still take no more than one wife. This distinction ended up drawing a bright red line between primitive tribes and advanced civilizations.

2) The relationship between the sexes changed. With hunting-and-gathering, there was a very even division of labor between the sexes. As another conclave summoned in 1980 called “Woman the Gatherer” would establish, 60 to 70 percent of the food intake in hunting-and-gathering societies actually comes from women’s activities. Meat is only the preferred food . This creates a balance between the sexes that makes monogamy a very productive enterprise.

With the adoption of agriculture, however, things changed. In some cultures, men eventually took it up and became productive. In others, however, they have disdained farming as “women’s work” and contribute only occasional labor such as clearing land. . . . [T]he economic balance between the sexes that fosters monogamy was upset.

The parallels to the biblical Book of Genesis are striking. In Genesis, the first humans are monogamous. It is only after sin has entered the world that polygamy starts to become widespread. The Bible portrays polygamy as the cause of numerous instances of violence, conflict and strife among the Patriarchs and the kings of Israel.

Which Came First, Polygamy or Monogamy? Part 1

Post Author: Bill Pratt 

According to William Tucker, in his book Marriage and Civilization: How Monogamy Made Us Human, human beings were hunter-gatherers for thousands of years before settling down in larger population groups and becoming agricultural societies around 10,000 years ago.

Over the last couple hundred years, as anthropologists have discovered and studied ancient hunter-gatherer people-groups that still exist today, the evidence is over-whelming: they are monogamous. Tucker writes:

As explorers pushed farther into the forgotten corners of the world, however, they discovered a few remaining tribes that were still practicing hunting-and-gathering— the Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert, the Pygmies of Central Africa, the Aborigines of Australia. This led to an astonishing revelation. All turned out to be monogamous!

The monogamy of hunter-gatherers leads to an amazing egalitarian ethic among their groups. Tucker quotes Richard Wrangham and Dale Peterson:

In general , hunter-gatherer people evince some of the most delightful and admirable ethics found anywhere. They may possess only a few rough and worn objects and little food beyond what is about to be eaten, but whatever one individual has is usually shared. People cooperate, and they promote cooperation. When one man tries to make himself better than his fellows, he is scorned, so that no one can become the “big man” or a petty tyrant over others. Hunter-gatherer societies are capable, anthropologists agree, of an “extreme political and sexual egalitarianism.”

So how did polygamy arise among human populations?

Apparently, it was the invention of agriculture and the accumulation of property and permanent wealth that had caused primitive agriculturalists to take up polygamy, as wealthier men began to acquire more women. By the 1930s, European anthropologists such as A. R. Radcliffe-Brown were arguing that polygamy was in fact a backsliding, arriving only after hunter-gatherer norms had broken down. With the loss of communal hunting, male members could now be excluded from the tribe without great consequence.

When wealthier men no longer needed to collaborate and cooperate with less wealthy men, they started taking more women. Polygamy was the result.

In part 2, we will take a more in-depth look at what caused the demise of the hunter-gatherers and why the practice of monogamy came under attack.

Why Monogamy?

Post Author: Bill Pratt


My friend, Wes, has again recommended to me a great book which I just finished. The book is called Marriage and Civilization: How Monogamy Made Us Human and is written by William Tucker. Here is Tucker explaining what he is going to tackle in the book:

The premise from which we will work is simple. Human monogamy— the pair-bonding of couples within the framework of a larger social group— is not entirely a natural institution. This is attested by the observation that 95 percent of all species are polygamous. Where monogamy has been adopted in nature, it usually involves pair-bonded couples living in isolation in a challenging environment.

Birds pair off within a larger group, which is why in matters of romance we often feel more affinity with them than we do with our fellow mammals; while 90 percent of bird species are monogamous, 97 percent of mammal species are polygamous and individual pair-bonds are almost unknown. Only the beaver and a few others practice monogamy.

Monogamy, then, is not the rule in the natural world, but is the exception. So why was monogamy ever adopted by human beings when most of the animal world is polygamous? Tucker explains that

in almost all species, males spend most of their time fighting among themselves for access to females. The unique social contract of monogamy— a male for every female , a female for every male— lowers the temperature of sexual competition and frees its members to work together in cooperation. It is at this juncture that human societies— even human civilizations— are born.

Tucker spends much of his time in the book defending the hypothesis that monogamous human societies experience greater peace and less violence than polygamous societies. He notes, however, that there is an ever-present danger that monogamy will vanish.

Unfortunately, monogamy does not sustain itself “naturally.” It requires rules —rules that must be continuously enforced by the members practicing it. Moreover, the benefits of monogamy are not distributed equally. There are clear winners and losers, and there will always be pressure against the system from individuals who are dissatisfied with it. Yet any society that responds too enthusiastically to these grievances or decides that the system is no longer worth defending will find itself slipping back into an older social order where male competition is far more intense and the peace of civilization is difficult to maintain.

Why is it that monogamy fosters peace while polygamy fosters violence?

All this can be illustrated with some simple arithmetic. In any animal or human population, there will always be approximately the same number of males and females. When it comes to mating, then, there should be a male for every female and a female for every male . Without the restrictions of monogamy, however, the more powerful males will collect multiple females, leaving the lowest status males with none.

When this happens in nature, the unattached males usually wander off alone to lives that are “nasty , brutish, and short,” or else congregate in a “bachelor herd” where they engage in endless status competitions until one or more emerge as strong challengers to the reigning alpha males. A titanic battle then ensues and if the challenger wins he takes over the “pride,”“pod,” or “harem” of females (there is a name in almost every species). He becomes the new alpha and gets to sire progeny.

So the results of polygamy are that lower status males will be unable to mate because the females have all been claimed by the higher status males. What happens if monogamy is practiced?

Monogamy presents a different picture altogether. If every male is guaranteed a mate, then the losers are high-status males. Their breeding opportunities are curtailed. The winners are lower-status males, who are no longer thrust into exile but are given the opportunity to mate.

There are winners and losers on the female side as well. The winners are high-status females who now have exclusive access to a high-status male instead of having to share him with other females. This is particularly important if the male is a provider. A high-status female who can lay exclusive claim to the efforts of a high-status male provider tremendously increases her chances of raising successful offspring.

At the same time, the fortunes of low-status females are severely constricted by monogamy. They no longer have access to high-status males, either genetically or provisionally, but must be contented with the resources of an inferior, low-status male.

These same lessons can be applied to human civilizations, argues Tucker.

Although all this may seem transparent, its application to the workings of societies both contemporary and historic produces remarkable insights. First of all, it poses the question, how did monogamy ever evolve if high-status males are the biggest losers? After all, it is usually high-status males that dominate a social group and set the rules.

Second, it explains why the predominant pattern in many former civilizations—that of Ancient Egypt or Imperial China, for instance— was polygamy at the top while monogamy prevailed among the common people. The rulers of most ancient civilizations were unabashed in taking multiple wives and consorts— even whole harems. In a few instances— the Ottoman Empire, for example— this stark inequality became so pronounced that the society became basically dysfunctional. On a smaller scale, the same pattern holds in Islamic societies today.

The important point is this. Although monogamy is manifestly a more equitable and successful way to organize a society, it is always under siege and forever fragile. It requires rules that must be upheld by its members. If a society becomes lax or indifferent about upholding its norms, the advantages will quickly unravel— as we are plainly witnessing in the America of today.

Tucker continues, in his book, to provide loads of evidence and argumentation about the pros of monogamy and the cons of polygamy, as illustrated by a variety of human societies, large and small. In future blog posts, I will dig out some of the key arguments and evidence from the book. Stay tuned.