Does Polygamy Lead to More Violence and Societal Instability?

I'd say the answer is yes. See:

http://www.economist.com/news/speci...nd-mayhem?fsrc=scn/tw/te/pe/ed/ofmenandmayhem

"North-east Nigeria, where Boko Haram operates, is largely Islamic, but it is also poor, despite Nigeria’s oil wealth, and corruptly governed. It has lots of young men, many of them living hand to mouth. It is also polygamous: 40% of married women share a husband. Rich old men have multiple spouses; poor young men are left single, sex-starved and without a stable family life. Small wonder some are tempted to join Boko Haram."

"Beware the youth bulge

Globally, the people who fight in wars or commit violent crimes are nearly all young men. Henrik Urdal of the Harvard Kennedy School looked at civil wars and insurgencies around the world between 1950 and 2000, controlling for such things as how rich, democratic or recently violent countries were, and found that a “youth bulge” made them more strife-prone. When 15-24-year-olds made up more than 35% of the adult population—as is common in developing countries—the risk of conflict was 150% higher than with a rich-country age profile."

This is true. It's one of the reasons for the dip in crime in recent years in the U.S. We had such a youth bulge, which has now aged; the dip wasn't just because of tougher law enforcement, although that definitely helped, in my opinion.
"If young men are jobless or broke, they make cheap recruits for rebel armies.

"And if their rulers are crooked or cruel, they will have cause to rebel. Youth unemployment in Arab states is twice the global norm. The autocrats who were toppled in the Arab Spring were all well past pension age, had been in charge for decades and presided over kleptocracies.


Christopher Cramer of the School of Oriental and African Studies in London cautions that there is no straightforward causal link between unemployment and violence. It is not simply a lack of money that spurs young men to rebel, he explains; it is more that having a job is a source of status and identity.


Throughout history, men have killed men roughly 97 times more often than women have killed women. The reasons are biological. In all cultures, the appetite for mayhem peaks in the late teens or early 20s, “just when males are competing more fiercely for mating opportunities, as in other mammals”, notes Matt Ridley in “The Evolution of Everything”. In “Homicide”, Martin Daly and Margo Wilson put it like this: “Any creature that is recognisably on track towards complete reproductive failure must somehow expend effort, often at risk of death, to try to improve its present life trajectory.” Wars, alas, give young men a chance to kill potential rivals (ie, other men) and seize or rape women. From Islamic State to the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda, rebel forces often let their troops treat females as spoils."

This may be true, but it of course doesn't make it right. I'm never very sympathetic to arguments that my hormones made me do it, whether it's a male or a female proposing it. The exception would be something severe and quantifiable like post-partum depression. Otherwise, it's about on par with if I don't have it I'll get ill. Boo hoo. For what it's worth, brain imaging shows that most teen-age brains are similar to the brains of adults with bi-polar disorder. That's not a good enough excuse either. Similar isn't the same.

"The polygamy powder keg

Any system that produces a surplus of single men is likely to be unstable. Polygamous societies suffer “higher rates of murder, theft, rape, social disruption, kidnapping (especially of females), sexual slavery and prostitution,” note Joseph Henrich, Robert Boyd and Peter Richerson in “The Puzzle of Monogamy”. The Mormon church banned polygamy in 1890 but some breakaway enclaves still practise it. They solve the problem of surplus males by expelling teenage boys from their isolated communities for minor infractions. In southern Utah your correspondent met Kevin (he would not give his surname), who was thrown out of such a sect at 17 for playing video games. He said it was odd how the elders almost never expelled girls."

It's not just polygamy, though. The selective abortion practiced in China and India has the same effect.

Angela said:

I'd say the answer is yes. See:

http://www.economist.com/news/speci...nd-mayhem?fsrc=scn/tw/te/pe/ed/ofmenandmayhem

"North-east Nigeria, where Boko Haram operates, is largely Islamic, but it is also poor, despite Nigeria’s oil wealth, and corruptly governed. It has lots of young men, many of them living hand to mouth. It is also polygamous: 40% of married women share a husband. Rich old men have multiple spouses; poor young men are left single, sex-starved and without a stable family life. Small wonder some are tempted to join Boko Haram."

"Beware the youth bulge

Globally, the people who fight in wars or commit violent crimes are nearly all young men. Henrik Urdal of the Harvard Kennedy School looked at civil wars and insurgencies around the world between 1950 and 2000, controlling for such things as how rich, democratic or recently violent countries were, and found that a “youth bulge” made them more strife-prone. When 15-24-year-olds made up more than 35% of the adult population—as is common in developing countries—the risk of conflict was 150% higher than with a rich-country age profile."

Click to expand...

I'm afraid Saudi Arabia and Iran have these elements, young population and polygamy. It increases probability of conflict between them or just internal revolution.

Throughout history, men have killed men roughly 97 times more often than women have killed women. The reasons are biological. In all cultures, the appetite for mayhem peaks in the late teens or early 20s, “just when males are competing more fiercely for mating opportunities, as in other mammals”, notes Matt Ridley in “The Evolution of Everything”. In “Homicide”, Martin Daly and Margo Wilson put it like this: “Any creature that is recognisably on track towards complete reproductive failure must somehow expend effort, often at risk of death, to try to improve its present life trajectory.” Wars, alas, give young men a chance to kill potential rivals (ie, other men) and seize or rape women. From Islamic State to the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda, rebel forces often let their troops treat females as spoils."

Click to expand...

According to elders of existing hunter gatherers in Amazon Jungle, most killings and wars were about women and fire.

"The polygamy powder keg

Click to expand...

Any system that produces a surplus of single men is likely to be unstable. Polygamous societies suffer “higher rates of murder, theft, rape, social disruption, kidnapping (especially of females), sexual slavery and prostitution,” note Joseph Henrich, Robert Boyd and Peter Richerson in “The Puzzle of Monogamy”. The Mormon church banned polygamy in 1890 but some breakaway enclaves still practise it. They solve the problem of surplus males by expelling teenage boys from their isolated communities for minor infractions. In southern Utah your correspondent met Kevin (he would not give his surname), who was thrown out of such a sect at 17 for playing video games. He said it was odd how the elders almost never expelled girls."

It's not just polygamy, though. The selective abortion practiced in China and India has the same effect.

Click to expand...

At the moment in India and China there are tens of millions of single young men who will never have a chance to get married. I hope that nobody charismatic will have an idea to make an army of them to fight for equal sharing of women, or whatever the real cause is. Tens of millions of young men!

Angela said:

Throughout history, men have killed men roughly 97 times more often than women have killed women. The reasons are biological. In all cultures, the appetite for mayhem peaks in the late teens or early 20s, “just when males are competing more fiercely for mating opportunities, as in other mammals”, notes Matt Ridley in “The Evolution of Everything”. In “Homicide”, Martin Daly and Margo Wilson put it like this: “Any creature that is recognisably on track towards complete reproductive failure must somehow expend effort, often at risk of death, to try to improve its present life trajectory.” Wars, alas, give young men a chance to kill potential rivals (ie, other men) and seize or rape women. From Islamic State to the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda, rebel forces often let their troops treat females as spoils."

Click to expand...

So a peacefull society is against men's nature?
Men always need new challenges. Discover new frontiers or go to the moon.
If there are no challenges any more, life becomes dull.
That is why I don't believe in egalitarian societies with preprogrammed lives, the same for every one. It's a dead end. The European model can't work.
Women may have a different view, but then they don't understand men.

bicicleur said:

So a peacefull society is against men's nature?
Men always need new challenges. Discover new frontiers or go to the moon.
If there are no challenges any more, life becomes dull.
That is why I don't believe in egalitarian societies with preprogrammed lives, the same for every one. It's a dead end. The European model can't work.
Women may have a different view, but then they don't understand men.

Click to expand...

Oh, some of us understand them very well, if I may be so bold; it's just that we don't much like some of what we come to understand. We try to live with it, however, as there are compensations. Indeed, in certain areas they're indispensable, at least for most of us.

I can tell you that there was an absolute din in American universities of "feminist" left wing ideology about what's wrong with men, some going so far as to opine the world would be much better off if we could just reproduce without them. I didn't hear that at all in Europe, although my one semester of experience there was in Italy, which probably is not a good barometer for attitudes in more northern Europe.

Angela said:

Oh, some of us understand them very well, if I may be so bold; it's just that we don't much like some of what we come to understand. We try to live with it, however, as there are compensations. Indeed, in certain areas they're indispensable, at least for most of us.

I can tell you that there was an absolute din in American universities of "feminist" left wing ideology about what's wrong with men, some going so far as to opine the world would be much better off if we could just reproduce without them. I didn't hear that at all in Europe, although my one semester of experience there was in Italy, which probably is not a good barometer for attitudes in more northern Europe.

Click to expand...

one could argue there should be 2 planets, one for men and one for women
but that wouldn't have much future either
and where would be the fun?

Angela said:

Oh, some of us understand them very well, if I may be so bold; it's just that we don't much like some of what we come to understand. We try to live with it, however, as there are compensations. Indeed, in certain areas they're indispensable, at least for most of us.

I can tell you that there was an absolute din in American universities of "feminist" left wing ideology about what's wrong with men, some going so far as to opine the world would be much better off if we could just reproduce without them. I didn't hear that at all in Europe, although my one semester of experience there was in Italy, which probably is not a good barometer for attitudes in more northern Europe.

Click to expand...

and what do you make of this Angela?

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/syrian-rapist-run-after-escaping-7347999

women like men with to much testosteron
but do they also seriuously expect these men to be faithful to them?
there will be some sobering up for the lady in this story

they say men think with their penis
but with what is this lady thinking then?

explain to me, I don't have the same equipment as this lady

bicicleur said:

and what do you make of this Angela?

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/syrian-rapist-run-after-escaping-7347999

women like men with to much testosteron
but do they also seriuously expect these men to be faithful to them?
there will be some sobering up for the lady in this story

they say men think with their penis
but with what is this lady thinking then?

explain to me, I don't have the same equipment as this lady

Click to expand...

Women guards forming attachments to prisoners, even violent prisoners, is not all that unusual. A woman guard here was recently sentenced to prison for helping two inmates escape from an upstate detention facility. It's much more common than prison authorities are willing to admit, although usually it doesn't rise to escape plans, and they limit themselves to bringing in cigarettes and drugs and food and providing sex.

The question, of course, is why do the women do it? I don't think it's necessarily more complicated than the fact that if you have a vulnerable, needy, perhaps psychologically frail woman, and an inmate who is often indeed a manipulator, and sets himself out to be attentive sexually and otherwise, the woman can fall for it. For the women there may be an element of enjoying their control as well, although that will end if they do get him out. It's not as if male guards don't do the same for female inmates, although in a lot of those cases the encounters are not consensual. (A related phenomenon is when people, male and female, go to websites where they can sign on to start a correspondence with prisoners. They also often lead to emotional and even, eventually, sexual involvement.)

In this particular case there are some differences. For one thing, to be blunt, she's more attractive than the norm in these kinds of cases. The other thing is that she somehow bought into the whole ISIS brand of female subjugation. The easy explanation is that she's nuts. Perhaps another, nicer way to say it is that she has a very weak sense of identity and self-confidence. That, I think, is the case for both male and female converts to this ideology. That, and the fact that they want purpose in their lives. As for the women who take this journey, if the reports coming out are accurate, these young women become very disillusioned very quickly.
http://d.ibtimes.co.uk/en/full/1489...syrian-inmate-hassan-kikoescapejail.jpg?w=400

This is different from the more normal situation where a woman can fall for a hyper-masculine "player" and then be surprised when he continues to "play the field" even after marriage. What can I tell you? Sometimes the woman doesn't know his real character, although in hindsight the clues are obvious. Often, there's definitely self-delusion going on. Now that he's found wonderful, spectacular me, who can fulfill his every need, he won't ever go to another woman again. It sometimes works out that way, but not often. Then, the choices are limited. Do you leave him, despite children, conjoined families and business interests, do you just train yourself to ignore it and not care because he comes home every night, or do you stay and live in torment because you can't break the bonds? Sometimes, the heart wants what the heart wants, the body too, for that matter. People are endlessly complicated. Oh, and this isn't only a dilemma for women, even if it's more common. There are men faced with these issues too.

As for polygamy specifically, most women don't choose it; they're born into it, get indoctrinated into it. From what I can tell from readings and documentaries, most of them don't like it very much. How could a woman like, after living with a man for a decade or two, bearing God knows how many children, being dumped and displaced by a younger, prettier version? If she's borne a male child she still retains some respect, and perhaps she still controls the household, but what a horror it must be to have this younger usurper in the same house. Certainly, in situations where it's a ruler or a very rich man, the women seem to have been constantly engaged in virtual warfare against each other, for their own larger share of the spoils, to advance their children at the expense of others etc. As I said, it doesn't seem like a very happy situation.

Women - and men - are complex creatures, and none is the same.
Thanks for walking me around.

Angela said:

I'd say the answer is yes. See:

http://www.economist.com/news/speci...nd-mayhem?fsrc=scn/tw/te/pe/ed/ofmenandmayhem

"North-east Nigeria, where Boko Haram operates, is largely Islamic, but it is also poor, despite Nigeria’s oil wealth, and corruptly governed. It has lots of young men, many of them living hand to mouth. It is also polygamous: 40% of married women share a husband. Rich old men have multiple spouses; poor young men are left single, sex-starved and without a stable family life. Small wonder some are tempted to join Boko Haram."

"Beware the youth bulge

Globally, the people who fight in wars or commit violent crimes are nearly all young men. Henrik Urdal of the Harvard Kennedy School looked at civil wars and insurgencies around the world between 1950 and 2000, controlling for such things as how rich, democratic or recently violent countries were, and found that a “youth bulge” made them more strife-prone. When 15-24-year-olds made up more than 35% of the adult population—as is common in developing countries—the risk of conflict was 150% higher than with a rich-country age profile."

This is true. It's one of the reasons for the dip in crime in recent years in the U.S. We had such a youth bulge, which has now aged; the dip wasn't just because of tougher law enforcement, although that definitely helped, in my opinion.
"If young men are jobless or broke, they make cheap recruits for rebel armies.

"And if their rulers are crooked or cruel, they will have cause to rebel. Youth unemployment in Arab states is twice the global norm. The autocrats who were toppled in the Arab Spring were all well past pension age, had been in charge for decades and presided over kleptocracies.


Christopher Cramer of the School of Oriental and African Studies in London cautions that there is no straightforward causal link between unemployment and violence. It is not simply a lack of money that spurs young men to rebel, he explains; it is more that having a job is a source of status and identity.


Throughout history, men have killed men roughly 97 times more often than women have killed women. The reasons are biological. In all cultures, the appetite for mayhem peaks in the late teens or early 20s, “just when males are competing more fiercely for mating opportunities, as in other mammals”, notes Matt Ridley in “The Evolution of Everything”. In “Homicide”, Martin Daly and Margo Wilson put it like this: “Any creature that is recognisably on track towards complete reproductive failure must somehow expend effort, often at risk of death, to try to improve its present life trajectory.” Wars, alas, give young men a chance to kill potential rivals (ie, other men) and seize or rape women. From Islamic State to the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda, rebel forces often let their troops treat females as spoils."

This may be true, but it of course doesn't make it right. I'm never very sympathetic to arguments that my hormones made me do it, whether it's a male or a female proposing it. The exception would be something severe and quantifiable like post-partum depression. Otherwise, it's about on par with if I don't have it I'll get ill. Boo hoo. For what it's worth, brain imaging shows that most teen-age brains are similar to the brains of adults with bi-polar disorder. That's not a good enough excuse either. Similar isn't the same.

"The polygamy powder keg

Any system that produces a surplus of single men is likely to be unstable. Polygamous societies suffer “higher rates of murder, theft, rape, social disruption, kidnapping (especially of females), sexual slavery and prostitution,” note Joseph Henrich, Robert Boyd and Peter Richerson in “The Puzzle of Monogamy”. The Mormon church banned polygamy in 1890 but some breakaway enclaves still practise it. They solve the problem of surplus males by expelling teenage boys from their isolated communities for minor infractions. In southern Utah your correspondent met Kevin (he would not give his surname), who was thrown out of such a sect at 17 for playing video games. He said it was odd how the elders almost never expelled girls."

It's not just polygamy, though. The selective abortion practiced in China and India has the same effect.

Click to expand...

There are Amazon Indian tribes I think who practice polygamy!
They should be studied!
But I think there is no reason for violence in a polygamous society!
You simply have to wait for your turn!
Monogamy is the source of violence! One has to fight for his or her partner

DuPidh said:

There are Amazon Indian tribes I think who practice polygamy!
They should be studied!
But I think there is no reason for violence in a polygamous society!
You simply have to wait for your turn!
Monogamy is the source of violence! One has to fight for his or her partner

Click to expand...

I guess this is a different type of polygamy, when anyone can have sex with whoever, than polygamy of one man having many women and many men nothing. The first polygamy is based on sharing all like communism, the other is feudalism, the rich ruler takes all.