The economics of polygamy

[shecky]

Interesting NYT article about the unusual number of teen boys driven from a polygamous sect in the southern Utah/northern Arizona region. This particular part struck me:

Quote:

Over the last six years, hundreds of teenage boys have been expelled or felt compelled to leave the polygamous settlement that straddles Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah.
Disobedience is usually the reason given for expulsion, but former sect members and state legal officials say the exodus of males — the expulsion of girls is rarer — also remedies a huge imbalance in the marriage market. Members of the sect believe that to reach eternal salvation, men are supposed to have at least three wives.

Aside from all the other issues raised by this confluence of religion, marriage, abandonment, minors and sex, I thought there are interesting practical aspects of the sect's tendency to banish boys. I suspect it must be tough dealing with poorly defined rules and what I suspect are moving goalposts these teen boys have to deal with, depending on the perception of a shrinking pool of females. I feel for these poor kids and the inhumane treatment they endure from their loving, pious families.

[Gord_in_Toronto]

I would be inclined to replace the words "loving, pious" with "severely deluded" in the phrase, "their loving, pious families". OTW I agree with your comments.

[Bikewer]

I find the parallels with behavior of the polygamous sects and various animal groups to be interesting. In the case of our closest relatives, the dominant male essentially has his way with the females, while the younger males often form "bachelor" groups, living away from the clan.
The same with various herd animals, where again a dominant male gets all the lovin', and young upstart males are driven off.

I have wondered if the behavior of megalomaniac cult leaders of all stripes is not more than a bit atavistic. Complete control of the members, choice of the females, driving off or killing upcoming male rivals.....

[fuelair]

Originally Posted by shecky

Interesting NYT article about the unusual number of teen boys driven from a polygamous sect in the southern Utah/northern Arizona region. This particular part struck me:

Aside from all the other issues raised by this confluence of religion, marriage, abandonment, minors and sex, I thought there are interesting practical aspects of the sect's tendency to banish boys. I suspect it must be tough dealing with poorly defined rules and what I suspect are moving goalposts these teen boys have to deal with, depending on the perception of a shrinking pool of females. I feel for these poor kids and the inhumane treatment they endure from their loving, pious families.

Or, think of animal groups where the young males are pushed out on their own. Same reason, same level of function. The animals just have the good grace to not hide it in religion - they just freely take the young females.

[TragicMonkey]

With lions, isn't it the young males who drive out the older ones? And murder their remaining cubs, of course, to bring the females back into heat.

Bender: Nature is hilariously cruel.

[Puppycow]

Originally Posted by TragicMonkey

With lions, isn't it the young males who drive out the older ones? And murder their remaining cubs, of course, to bring the females back into heat.

Bender: Nature is hilariously cruel.

With Lions, often two male lions, brothers, work together. Since a single male is no match for two males, no matter how strong. However, one is dominant, and the other does not get to mate, although since the other is his brother, he is helping to preserve the genes of a close relative. The young males will drive out older ones when they become strong enough to do so.

In chimps, too, the dominant alpha male gets to mate, and usually does not tolerate other males mating, particularly when females are fertile.

[Cain]

Was this thread inspired by the blog posting over at Marginal Revolution? Anyway, Robert Wright was the first person I read who made the observation that in polygamy it's the young men who tend to get screwed, so to speak, because the dominant, wealthy, high-status males get the females. So, for example, if you had 100 males and 100 females ranked in order of absolute desirability (say), then in a monogamous society they would just be paired off right down the line. However, since women and men have different reasons for marriage, different mating strategies, a female ranked 88 might prefer to be the second or third wife of a relatively high status male who can better afford to invest in and raise a child. So, the argument goes, monogamy, contrary to popular belief, mostly benefits the average man.

On MR, a poster writes:

Quote:

I've always found societies that practice polygamy interesting in that it is sometimes used as a method to enforce financial equality. By encouraging the wealthy to marry as many women and sire as many children as they can afford, the group as a whole is able to prevent the passing on of large amounts of inherited wealth. The result is that in each generation every male starts out at with about the same advantages, regardless of the success of his father.

[shecky]

I first saw it on Metafilter, and when snooping around, found the Marginal Revolution post. I had seen previously Tyler Cowen's observations on the economics of polygamy in a different post a while back. My own ability to think in such terms is pretty limited, but I think there are a lot of hypotheticals, as polygamy is a pretty rare occurrence. The few examples most of us get to observe are tainted by other issues, such as religion, culture, and various legal/free will questions.

In this particular case, I was struck by the same thing Cowen pointed out. The desirability of men to marry multiple women produces much competition among the male population. It would seem the "haves" get to set the rules that cull the herd of potential competitors, and the rules change to meet the demand.

[ponderingturtle]

Originally Posted by TragicMonkey

With lions, isn't it the young males who drive out the older ones? And murder their remaining cubs, of course, to bring the females back into heat.

Bender: Nature is hilariously cruel.

I believe that males are driven out first, then they find a pride where they can drive out the older male there and do that, if they survive on their own.

[Andronicus]

Richard Posner, Sex & Reason (Harvard University Press,1992), is where I first ran across it. A US federal appellate judge and economist, he goes into detail on the economics of monogamy and polygamy.