Greater wealth inequality, less polygyny: rethinking the polygyny threshold model

Journal of the Royal Society, Interface
Cody T RossJohn Ziker

Abstract

Monogamy appears to have become the predominant human mating system with the emergence of highly unequal agricultural populations that replaced relatively egalitarian horticultural populations, challenging the conventional idea-based on the polygyny threshold model-that polygyny should be positively associated with wealth inequality. To address this polygyny paradox, we generalize the standard polygyny threshold model to a mutual mate choice model predicting the fraction of women married polygynously. We then demonstrate two conditions that are jointly sufficient to make monogamy the predominant marriage form, even in highly unequal societies. We assess if these conditions are satisfied using individual-level data from 29 human populations. Our analysis shows that with the shift to stratified agricultural economies: (i) the population frequency of relatively poor individuals increased, increasing wealth inequality, but decreasing the frequency of individuals with sufficient wealth to secure polygynous marriage, and (ii) diminishing marginal fitness returns to additional wives prevent extremely wealthy men from obtaining as many wives as their relative wealth would otherwise predict. These conditions jointly lead to a high popul...Continue Reading

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Citations

Aug 23, 2018·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Monique Borgerhoff Mulder
Jul 16, 2019·Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences·Monique Borgerhoff MulderJohn Ziker
Aug 15, 2019·Proceedings. Biological Sciences·Monique Borgerhoff Mulder, Cody T Ross
Sep 24, 2020·Proceedings. Biological Sciences·Tanya BroeschMonique Borgerhoff Mulder
Oct 8, 2020·Proceedings. Biological Sciences·Cody T RossPaul L Hooper
May 18, 2021·Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences·Cara L EvansKathryn R Kirby

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