adminPolygamy was permitted in most parts of the world at one time, but there has been a move away from the practice.Monogamy is now the rule in eastern and western Europe, North America, South America, Central America, Australia, New Zealand and large parts of Asia, including Japan and China. Although India continues to permit Muslims to enter into polygamous marriages, 80 percent of its population is governed by the Hindu Marriage Act, which permits only monogamous marriage.
In many of the Asian, Middle Eastern and African countries that still permit polygamy, the rules governing the practice have been made more stringent, and actually polygamous marriages are the exception rather than the rule.
In Islamic countries, only the wealthier men are able to comply with the Koran’s requirement that a man who takes on more than one wife be able to afford each of them and their children equal protection and benefit.
Anthropologists suggest that the reasons for, or functions of, polygamy include the following:
Increase the probability of children, particularly when a wife is barren or gives birth to female children only.
Increase the labour supply within a kinship network.
Deal with the “problem” of surplus women.
Expand the range of a man’s alliances so he is able to maintain or acquire a position of leadership.
Perhaps provide sexual satisfaction to men, particularly in societies with lengthy post-partum sexual taboos
Replaces divorce in countries with limited grounds for divorce and high thresholds for proving those grounds.
Social scientists have given various theoretical explanations for the practice of polygamy including variants of a “male compromise” theory, which explains polygamy as resulting from socio-economic stratifications among men. Monogamy is thus the result of a compromise among men usually following democratic development, whereby the wealthy, powerful men surrender polygamous practices and multiple wives in exchange for political support from poor men.
Others argue for a “female choice” theory of marriage practices, which posits that women are in the position of demanding a particular marriage form based on the availability and status of men.
Where resource inequalities are great among men, women will choose to marry polygamously. Where inequalities are comparatively low, women will chose to marry monogamously.
Others argue that polygamy is really about male choice and preference for sexual variety to ensure male reproductive success. The extent of the opportunity to seek sexual variety may vary, however, with social circumstances, such as the degree to which women are available and how costly they are as wives (their economic value). The view rejects the female choice theory and notes that it is mostly high-status men in polygamous societies who have multiple wives, as they have “the means to acquire them and the personality traits (e.g., competitiveness, aggressiveness) that incline them toward the pursuit of several females. High status males mate more often and leave more offspring, a pattern that is found widely throughout mammalian species.”
Bretschneider (1995) suggested that polygamy is a multi-dimensional phenomenon. He argued that it is not possible to isolate socio-cultural, economic, demographic or environmental conditions as singular causes. Rather, access and control over resources, as well as the mobility of women across borders, are significant influences.
The research is not conclusive on the impact on children of growing up in polygamous families. In 2002, researchers conducted a review of all quantitative and qualitative studies that had been done on the effect of polygamy on children’s outcomes (Elbedour et al. 2002). They found that children of polygamous marriages were at greater risk of experiencing marital conflict, family violence and family disruptions, marital distress, particularly that related to high levels of unhappiness of women in polygamous unions, absence of the father and financial stress.
However, some of the studies reviewed found that children, particularly older children in a family, demonstrated resilience in dealing with these risk factors. The researchers concluded that cultural factors play a role in determining the extent to which the risk factors associated with polygamy negatively affect children.
Polygamy has long been associated with gender inequality by Western commentators, and this remains the case. In particular, the United Nations has consistently taken the position that polygamy contravenes women’s equality rights. The UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, which monitors compliance of states parties to the Convention, issued a general recommendation in 1992 that included the following.
Polygamous marriage contravenes a woman’s right to equality with men, and can have such serious emotional and financial consequences for her and her dependants that such marriages ought to be discouraged and prohibited.
The Committee notes with concern that some States parties, whose constitutions guarantee equal rights, permit polygamous marriage in accordance with personal or customary law. This violates the constitutional rights of women, and breaches the provisions of article 5(a) of the Convention. 15
Social scientists studying various societies often reiterate that the practice of polygyny leads to women being oppressed, threatened or disempowered.
The decline in polygamy has been related to changing social conditions, the increase in democracy, the decline in arranged marriages, the increase in companionate marriage and the improvement in the education of and human rights protections for women. The consensus is that polygyny can flourish only in the context of gender inequality.
This is not to say that all women experience polygyny as exploitative or undesirable, only that the practice is connected with gender inequality by organizations such as the United Nations and most social scientists. — religioustolerance.org
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