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A link between polygamy and war

economist.com

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Re: A link between polygamy and war

#51

Post by dahart »

jrmurad wrote: post #48
a2tech wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think buying/selling women was a communist cornerstone. The reason I say this is a capitalist endeavor is the recognition of an asset (the daughter), the want to see the most return (as large of a bride price as possible), and then seeking to improve the asset through education, travel, and competition to lead to a better selling price.

Sorry, I'm not an economist but I'm not seeing a connection. It seems like you just may not like the idea of capitalism and are trying to connect it to something else which you consider to be bad. Turkmenistan's recent history is as a (Soviet) socialist republic and it ranks very, very low on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_of_Economic_Freedom . I'd need further convincing that this practice is reflective of a cu…

I took the comment to mean that some marriages are an economic exchange, a trade of money for goods, as opposed to an emotional bond of love between people. The specific economic system mentioned isn't super relevant, I'd guess he didn't mean to fit such a literal definition of capitalism.

Re: A link between polygamy and war

#52

Post by pbhjpbhj »

jrmurad wrote: post #48
a2tech wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think buying/selling women was a communist cornerstone. The reason I say this is a capitalist endeavor is the recognition of an asset (the daughter), the want to see the most return (as large of a bride price as possible), and then seeking to improve the asset through education, travel, and competition to lead to a better selling price.

Sorry, I'm not an economist but I'm not seeing a connection. It seems like you just may not like the idea of capitalism and are trying to connect it to something else which you consider to be bad. Turkmenistan's recent history is as a (Soviet) socialist republic and it ranks very, very low on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_of_Economic_Freedom . I'd need further convincing that this practice is reflective of a cu…

Surely the attempt to elicit a higher price via marketing is indicative of a capitalist ideal. Under a communist ideal (ie not necessarily a real system that's ever existed on Earth, AFAICT there has yet to be a state that's fully embraced communism; dictatorships don't count) improvement would be sought in order to better the collective good, rather than elicit a particular family's profit.

That a transactional system exists in a dictatorial regime that bears some communistic characteristics doesn't mean that transactional system (bride price) isn't "Capitalist".

Re: A link between polygamy and war

#53

Post by okintheory »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #49
a2tech wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for the info I’m aware that the hyphen used that way is a personal quirk. But I’m always looking to improve my written communication so I’ll use them correctly going forward.

FWIW sometimes I'll do an emdash -- which allows a conceptual aside -- by using two hyphens, but always with spacing so as not to confuse the usage with word-joining.

When an em dash is used to indicate a pause, it's most often used without spacing between words and the em dash—except in newspapers [1].

[1] http://www.thepunctuationguide.com/em-dash.html

Re: A link between polygamy and war

#54

Post by valuearb »

Melchizedek wrote: post #36
antientropic wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Polygyny may actually be advantageous to most women, while being bad for most men: https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200707/ten-politica... . This is because it allows many women to have a more desirable mate than they would otherwise have, while many men end up with no mate at all. From that perspective, it's no wonder that many patriarchal cultures outlawed polygyny.

In a way we reverted to this situation after women's sexual liberation. Before the time comes to have children, the most attractive men acquire most of the sex. And this is during the time in which women's attractiveness is at its highest. It is not until it is time to have children that most women settle down with a man of equal attractiveness (and sometimes not even then since the state will step in to provide reso…

You seem to be unaware of how many western wonen in their 40s and 50s are having multiple partners.

Re: A link between polygamy and war

#55

Post by kazagistar »

jpalomaki wrote: post #43
t3rmi wrote: post #2

This looks like a case of correlation vs causation. The author tries to link polygamy as a factor to unstable states. I would say poverty is a far more common factor among the countries presented. A counter example would be Saudi Arabia which has polygamy but is stable due to its wealth.

Older article which claims the link between surplus of young men and instability [1]. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/03/an...

An article from the same publication with the same claim is not a good supporting resource.

Re: A link between polygamy and war

#57

Post by debacle »

sudhirj wrote: post #29
a2tech wrote: post #24

A neat (for lack of a better word) thing to look at is bride prices-this article briefly touches on it but it was something I discussed a lot with our exchange student from Turkmenistan last year. Prior to our conversation I had never spent much time thinking about how buying a bride would work in practice, but it turns out that it ends up being a fine (although horrible) example of capitalist endeavor. So in Turkmen…

There’s also an expectation that women will marry ‘up’, even in first world countries, I think. It’s very ironic that women who develop themselves have a smaller option pool of mates.

It's not really an expectation. There have been studies on this, and women do tend to prefer mates at or above their social status (whether that means educationally, professionally, economically, etc). It makes finding a spouse late in life for successful women incredibly difficult.

Re: A link between polygamy and war

#58

Post by kazagistar »

golergka wrote: post #30
khrm wrote: post #20

"This is a remarkable article: it literally pins the blame for everything bad that non-white people do on the one thing white people (read Western Europeans) have criticized others for for two millennia: polygamy. Violence? Polygamy. Terrorism? Polygamy. Domestic violence? Polygamy. Child mortality? Polygamy. Of course the article is so high on its own supply that it ignores divorce/remarriage of wives of elite polyg…

> it literally pins the blame for everything bad that non-white people do on the one thing white people ... have criticized others for for two millennia While I don't think that polygamy is the root of all evil, it is a fact that "white people" countries don't have these bad things happening. Wouldn't it be logical to suggest that some difference in behaviour might be the reason for it?

No. Correlations implying causation are not logical, and there might be numerous possible other factors causing either or both.

Re: A link between polygamy and war

#59

Post by whack »

I'm opposed to polygamy for the obvious humanitarian concerns, and other issues raised in the article. But at the same time, I'm curious about the long-term genetic impact of monogamy vs polygamy.

IQ and many personality traits have been shown to be correlated significantly with genes (many of these studies are based on adopted children, for whom genes and upbringing are decoupled). In monogamous societies like in America, someone who's highly smart and industrious, will likely end up with the same number of children as someone on the opposite end of the spectrum. In polygamous societies, someone who's smart and industrious can easily end up with 2-10x the number of children as the average man. In terms of natural selection, this clearly puts significantly more selective pressure on intelligence and personality-traits.

Over a few decades, I doubt this will amount to much. But over a couple centuries/millenia, I wonder if polygamous societies would wind up as a race of smart-hard-working-competitive-assholes, in comparison to us monogamous dolts.

Re: A link between polygamy and war

#60

Post by geodel »

sudhirj wrote: post #29
a2tech wrote: post #24

A neat (for lack of a better word) thing to look at is bride prices-this article briefly touches on it but it was something I discussed a lot with our exchange student from Turkmenistan last year. Prior to our conversation I had never spent much time thinking about how buying a bride would work in practice, but it turns out that it ends up being a fine (although horrible) example of capitalist endeavor. So in Turkmen…

There’s also an expectation that women will marry ‘up’, even in first world countries, I think. It’s very ironic that women who develop themselves have a smaller option pool of mates.

Why is it ironic? Isn't it simple default that there are fewer successful people in most commonly used metrics like financially, socially, culturally etc? So if a women is successful they will have less mates to choose from.
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