Polygamy in History: World Ethnographic Atlas

[rockfox]

I posted this in another thread but it's too important to lie buried there. You may have heard it said that most human societies were polygamous, not monogamous. That is based on this:

http://eclectic.ss.uci.edu/~drwhite/worldcul/Codebook4EthnoAtlas.pdf

And the number is 85% of all human societies were polygamous. That is useful information, if for example, someone is arguing that humans are naturally monogamous, or that marriage historically meant 1 man and 1 woman.

There have been others who expanded on that with more details...

http://eclectic.ss.uci.edu/~drwhite/courses/SCCCodes.htm

So for example, from this we can get that in 59% of all societies where polygyny is practiced, under 20% of all marriages had multiple wives.

That is useful for disputing those that say polygamy will mean all the men will go without wives. It also breaks down polygamy by class/rank difference, so we can show that in 41% of poly societies people of higher class/power/wealth did not have higher rates of polygamy and in those that did, 79% of them was due to the wealth contributed by multiple wives. Which means that most of the time polygamy leads to wealth, rather than being limited to the wealthy. In other words, polygamy will allow us to improve our lives, not be further held back by the wealthy.

There is A LOT of information in these, most of it not related to polygamy. They're basically a catalog tabulation of the cultural attributes of human societies throughout history. More about it here.

Or when someone says, why not multiple husbands (polyandry), you can point out only 2 human societies in all of human history were polyandrous. From which you can make logical (secular) arguments against it.

And I've only scratched the surface of whats in those documents, and what is on Dr. White's website.

 

[Mojo]

This is not a critique of your graphs and posts (they are very interesting) but I'm just curious as to the conclusions. Are you saying that because polygamy has a history and place throughout the globe that it is legitimized?

If so, and I was a monogamist only Churchian, how would you counter my argument that existence doesn't signify acceptance by God.

 

[rockfox]

This is not a critique of your graphs and posts (they are very interesting) but I'm just curious as to the conclusions. Are you saying that because polygamy has a history and place throughout the globe that it is legitimized?

If so, and I was a monogamist only Churchian, how would you counter my argument that existence doesn't signify acceptance by God.

I agree. I left out a lot of context as I was merely providing pointers to the usefulness of the data, not trying to thoroughly rebut specific anti-polygyny arguments.

Say for example someone argues...humans aren't polygamous, we're naturally monogamous. This data disproves that. And we can point to the correlation in biology between sexual dimorphism and polygyny to support that (one example). As you can see, we're in the realm of secular, not theological arguments. And while I realize this is Biblical Families, often the arguments Christians make are secular (e.g. polygamy is bad, see it leads to bad things!).

And we can turn this into a theological argument by saying, after first showing its not sinful from the OT, doesn't nature itself teach you this? Most human societies were polygynous. Polygamy isn't some sinful digression from the plan, it's the flowering of our created nature. Many different animals practice a form of polygyny, especially the social ones. That isn't a result of their lax morals, it's their nature as created by God. So it is with us. Their only logical retort will be to point out some animals were created to be monogamous and claim so were we. But the prevalence of polygyny in history combined with the sexual dimorphism connection proves which of the two systems we were created to practice.

Another example, it was argued in some recent court case that marriage was intrinsically monogamous, esp. in the Western Legal context (I'm badly butchering the claim from memory). You can use this data to show the exceptions don't prove the rule. You can use Irish Brenen law to contradict the western law aspect of the argument.

Another example, many Christians will claim polygamy is unloving, since it will result in many men going without wives. You can point to this data to show that allowing polygamy won't necessarily result in a few men taking all the wives, and it hasn't in most cases.

Does that make sense?

 

[Mojo]

Totally makes sense. Thanks!

In addition to dimorphism and the "even nature shows us", is the fact that, unlike females, human males are pretty much fertile their entire adult lives. Why did God make it that way? God made men fertile for life, but expected them to only reproduce for the fertility lifespan of their monogamous partner?

Thanks again for developing the context and implications.

 

[PeteR]

I agree. I left out a lot of context as I was merely providing pointers to the usefulness of the data, not trying to thoroughly rebut specific anti-polygyny arguments.

Say for example someone argues...humans aren't polygamous, we're naturally monogamous. This data disproves that. And we can point to the correlation in biology between sexual dimorphism and polygyny to support that (one example). As you can see, we're in the realm of secular, not theological arguments. And while I realize this is Biblical Families, often the arguments Christians make are secular (e.g. polygamy is bad, see it leads to bad things!).

And we can turn this into a theological argument by saying, after first showing its not sinful from the OT, doesn't nature itself teach you this? Most human societies were polygynous. Polygamy isn't some sinful digression from the plan, it's the flowering of our created nature. Many different animals practice a form of polygyny, especially the social ones. That isn't a result of their lax morals, it's their nature as created by God. So it is with us. Their only logical retort will be to point out some animals were created to be monogamous and claim so were we. But the prevalence of polygyny in history combined with the sexual dimorphism connection proves which of the two systems we were created to practice.

Another example, it was argued in some recent court case that marriage was intrinsically monogamous, esp. in the Western Legal context (I'm badly butchering the claim from memory). You can use this data to show the exceptions don't prove the rule. You can use Irish Brenen law to contradict the western law aspect of the argument.

Another example, many Christians will claim polygamy is unloving, since it will result in many men going without wives. You can point to this data to show that allowing polygamy won't necessarily result in a few men taking all the wives, and it hasn't in most cases.

Does that make sense?

When are you going to write a book???

 

[rockfox]

What book?

 

[PeteR]

The one you need to write...