Terrorism and polygamy

[El Barto]

This article combines a couple topics that have been discussed recently on this forum:

Terrorism and polygamy

A clue to heightened levels of male violence

The recent discovery of a miniature race of extinct "Hobbits" on a small island in Indonesia reminds us how closely attached we human beings remain to our biological evolution.

It is not that everything is "programmed into our genes." Even the most strident sociobiologists say that no more than 40 to 50 percent of our behavior is "hard-wired." Cultural custom and personal choice play an equally important role. But evolution and biology set certain ground rules.

One rule is that if a large species becomes isolated on an island with limited resources and without predators, it will gradually grow smaller. That is what happened to the Hobbits.

Another is that if a culture adopts polygamy as its mating system, it will experience heightened levels of male violence.

The rules of polygamy and monogamy are well known to scientists. It's really a matter of simple arithmetic. Into every society is born approximately the same number of males and females. If each takes one mate - if there is "a girl for every boy and a boy for every girl" - then all will all have an approximately equal chance of mating.

If a society tolerates polygamy, however, the equation changes. When one man can take several wives, other men will have none. If there are five eligible males for every four eligible females, for instance, one in five males must remain unmarried.

This creates social tensions. It also creates strategies to deal with these tensions. One is to allow child marriage. Because there is a "wife shortage," men are permitted to reach further down into the female population, marrying girls that have barely reached puberty. In some ancient societies, grown men married infants and waited for them to grow up.

Polygamous societies also tend to practice extreme puritanism and be restrictive toward women. Because they are scarce, women are hoarded by families. To marry, men must pay a "brideprice." (The "dowry," on the other hand - a cash bonus attached to an eligible daughter - is the signature of monogamy.) The brideprice tends to concentrate the unmarried among poorer men.

FACED WITH this exclusion from domestic society, men tend to join the "bachelor herd" - gangs of unattached males that adopt criminal, even warlike, behavior. Polygamy is widespread in tropical Africa and those countries are constantly plagued with "rebel armies" that live in the bush for years, plotting conquest and kidnapping wives from villages.

Polygamy is not the only route to these imbalances. China has arrived at the same place by pursuing its "one-child" policy.

In Bare Branches: The Security Implications of Asia's Surplus Male Population, Andrea M. den Boer and Valerie Hudson show that sex selection by parents has produced ratio of 120 boys for every 100 girls. "Leaders in Beijing... will be hard pressed to address the potentially grave social instability," they argue. The authors predict a rise is "sectarian and ethnic violence" and say such tensions usually lead to an authoritarian society.

The one culture in the world that has most prominently sanctioned polygamy is Islam. Anthropologists believe this was inherited from early desert herding societies. (The Hebrew Patriarchs, remember, also practiced polygamy.) Saudi Arabia has a male-female ratio of 125 to 100 - probably the highest in the world. The extensive exclusion of women from public life in Muslim societies is an obvious attempt to hoard women for arranged marriages. Nothing threatens a polygamous social order more than a few casual liaisons in the ranks.

While polygamy may have worked for desert tribes struggling against nature, it creates obvious dangers for a mass urban society. The surplus male population is a time bomb, constantly undermining social instability. Authoritarian regimes face the biggest threat. The only option is to turn the violence outward against other societies. Science would predict a polygamous society to be in constant conflict with its neighbors.

For all these reasons, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the practice of polygamy is at the root of Islam's embattled position with the world. Perhaps suicide bombers are young men who have internalized the grim truth of polygamy - that some men are literally expendable. If so, the religion itself directs these tensions outward against neighbors.

Monogamy is the social contract that underlies the essentially peaceful nature of most human societies. By promising each man an equal chance of mating - and domesticating men in general - social harmony is established.

Some Islamic scholars are now suggesting that polygamy may have outlived its usefulness in urban societies - and that it may not have been sanctioned by the religion to begin with. This avenue of reform seems well worth pursuing.

[Cyrus]

Would polyandry promote democracy?

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[eLROY]

So every time Donald Trump marries a new fat whore, somewhere a wifeless bricklayer quits his job, and becomes a professional poker player?

[MMMMMM]

Consider the legends of the Amazons, Cyrus. My guess is that polyandry would promote warrior-like women.

[ChristinaB]

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Would polyandry promote democracy?

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I'm all for polyandry