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The economics of polygamy
The new HBO series Big Love presents a polygamous family, raising the obvious questions. Here is Ted Bergstrom on the economics of polygamy. Here is Tim Harford on polygamy. Excerpt:
It's hardly surprising that in most polygynous societies, the bride's family gets large payments in exchange for her hand in marriage. If polygyny combined with women's rights, I bet we'd see more promises to wash the dishes. Not everybody would have to share a husband, but I can think of some who might prefer half of Orlando Bloom to all of Tim Harford—including my wife.
In my bones I am a square who believes this arrangement cannot be best. Economists might question how polygamy makes women worse off, since they can always decline the arrangement. You might try a story about how the family, not the woman, captures the dowry payment and uses it to help their sons buy more wives (see Bergstrom, noting also that the very presence of polygamy shifts the outcome of the bargaining game with the family). Or you might try a story about sexually frustrated males who are led to revolt, thus destroying social order.
How about the trade-off between quality and quantity of children? A genetically talented father with many wives will likely maximize the quantity of children rather than their quality. This has a long-run negative externality, especially if you believe in the Lucas-Uzawa models of economic growth, or some approximation thereof. You would rather be in a society with fewer but more talented people. Switzerland rather than India. The loser is not the wives but rather the next generation of children. A piece in the February JPE also notes that the children may substitute for savings and thus polygamy can stunt capital formation; I take this as another version of the same argument.
The bottom line? We should encourage family structures that spur human capital formation. Polygamy does not do the trick. Comments are open...
Posted by Tyler Cowen on February 24, 2006 at 07:42 AM in Economics | Permalink
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Tyler Cowen takes a brave stand against polygamy on economic grounds: How about the trade-off between quality and quantity of children? A genetically talented father with many wives will likely maximize the quantity of children rather than their qualit... [Read More]
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» Four spouses good, two spouses better? from Asymmetrical Information
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» Four spouses good, two spouses better? from Asymmetrical Information
Tyler Cowen takes a brave stand against polygamy on economic grounds: How about the trade-off between quality and quantity of children? A genetically talented father with many wives will likely maximize the quantity of children rather than their qualit... [Read More]
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Comments
I see little reason why a free-market would choose only polygyny or polyandry, and therefore, not suprisingly, imagining scenarios regarding only one of these is unlikely to lead to good things.
I think it'd be more interesting to look at the economics of other forms of polygamy, such as the various group marriage types described in Robert Heinleing novels, such as "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress".
I also think it's foolish to mix up other details of societies that have polygamy with how polygamy might work in our society. I see no reason that polygamy would necessarily lead to dowries making a come-back. Nor do I think it's difficult to recognize that polygamy in Utah, where the participants are by definition willing to break the law primarily for religious reasons, is not a good case study, as the main comment on Tim Harford's piece implies. The illegal and immoral acts of outlaw-fanatics is unlikely to shed much light on legal polygamy in our society.
Posted by: Stephen Duncan Jr at Feb 24, 2006 8:40:46 AM
A genetically talented father with many wives will likely maximize the quantity of children rather than their quality.
How? You sort of breezed past this one without filling in the details.
A father who marries four women of varying intellectual candlepowers would probably produce (on average) smarter children than if he had married one dim bulb. It seems to all depend on which wives he chooses.
Maybe you're assuming things about the women he would choose from the simple fact that he's polygamous, but whatever those things are, you left them out.
Posted by: Famous J at Feb 24, 2006 8:40:52 AM
"It's hardly surprising that in most polygynous societies, the bride's family gets large payments in exchange for her hand in marriage. If polygyny combined with women's rights, I bet we'd see more promises to wash the dishes."
I bet not. Husbands promising to wash the dishes is NOT AT ALL what we see in existing societies that practice polygyny. As Tyler suggests, the enhanced value tends to translate not into enhanced status or power for the women but lower status and a tendency to treat women as high-priced property of male-dominated families and clans. And women who 'destroy their own value' (through unauthorized romantic activity) are treated as harshly as escaping slaves who were thought to be 'stealing their owner's property'.
What is far more likely to enhance female power (and lead husbands to treat them well) is independent earnings that enable a woman to leave and live with no official husband rather than leave and sign up as the Nth wife of Orlando Bloom. As, indeed, we see--the modern societies that offer women greatest independence also tend to produce the best treatment of them in marriage.
Posted by: Slocum at Feb 24, 2006 8:54:17 AM
Poppycock! :-)
2 children, each by a different wife, are better than 2 children with the same wife because genetic variance is higher therefore the offspring have more changes to survive and pass on the parents's genes.
Also, having more wives doesn't need to translate into more children per total. It can translate into a smaller number of children per wife with a constant total.
If each wife, in turn, has multiple husbands, this might lead to 1 child per couple with maximum variance. Genetic optimum.
Also, these kinds of arrangements are not about the children but about the sexual life of the parents and their preferences. Concerning the children, there is a large number of factors that have to be weighed.
Posted by: Gabriel Mihalache at Feb 24, 2006 8:57:47 AM
It is *so much* easier to augment quantity of kids with five wives rather than one. Or so I would think.
Tyler
Posted by: Tyler Cowen at Feb 24, 2006 9:00:54 AM
If you assume a basically free society which allows >2 marriage, I suspect things would pretty much balance out, with small but noticable minorities of polygamous and polyandrous marriages.
I realize I've invoked the possibility of >2 marriages with equal numbers of men and women, but they presumably wouldn't affect the question you're considering.
Why are you bringing up rather hypothical large group considerations to control individual choices?
Posted by: Nancy Lebovitz at Feb 24, 2006 9:04:12 AM
I would agree with Nancy. The Middle East is the major area where Polygyny is still practiced. From statistics I've seen only about 4% of the population practices it. For those of you questioning Tyler's point about quantitiy of children versus quality, I think the implicit point is that fathers in polygynous situations will spend less time and fewer resourecs on their many children. Of course if you ahve an increadibly talented father with an enormous number of resources this might not occur. In addition, I would suggest that if people were allowed to freely choose men could only enter polygynous arrangments if they were willing to accept women of substantially lower quality then themselves. To see this imagine that quality of men and women is distributed uniformly [0,1]. Assume that people practice assortive mating, i.e they want to be with someone of similar or greater quality then themselves. Further assume that in a polygynous situation them apply a 1/n factor to the quality factor of their mate (since they only get 1/n his time). AS this simple model implies evena high quality (say 0.99) can get one high quality woman or two women of quality <=0.49 or four women of quality or 4 women of quality <=0.24 etc. Of course with different distributions the results might not be so stark. With an exponential distribution it might make sense for very high quality men to marry several women particualrly if there is some uncertainty associated with quality. However, I think the basic point holds. More of lower quality fewer of higher quality.
Posted by: Michael at Feb 24, 2006 9:46:51 AM
Polygamy of a _de facto_ sort is not at all uncommon in the United States. Consider the example of an Alpha male who is married yet keeps a mistress on the side and has children with both women. It's effectively the same as, or at least quite similar to, _de jure_ polygamy notwithstanding the existence of only one legal marriage. Come of think of it, the top executive who trades in his current trophy wife for a new one every few years is engaging in a practice that comes mightly close to polygamy.
Posted by: Peter at Feb 24, 2006 9:59:13 AM
All of the data is antecdotal, of course, but the stories that are told about professional athletes (especially pro basketball players and Steve Garvey) would seem to support Tyler's argument about quantity over quality - although you can fairly ask what we should use as a comparison on the "quality" level.
Posted by: Devin McCullen at Feb 24, 2006 10:39:01 AM
"Or you might try a story about sexually frustrated males who are led to revolt, thus destroying social order."
Actually, the loser males in the bottom quarter of all men are not the problem to worry about here, since these men never exactly achieve very much or become a relevant force in any aspect of society. Just move away far enough from these men and they will not bother you in any way, especially if they are kept drugged, in prisons or just otherwise stuck.
Far more serious problem would be the men in the middle third, who would be able to get one wife but of lower quality than she would be in the present system of the male monogamy cartel. These men would understand how precarious their position is, and unlike the loser men, these men do get things done and have political power. I might have a cynical view of humanity and mankind, but I very much doubt that women's rights and freedoms would be a big concern for most men in a polygamous society.
And of course, if polygamy were widespread in the world's richest nation where even the average blue-collar schlub is unimaginably rich by world standards, we would probably see a massive growth in the mail-order bride industry.
Posted by: Ilkka Kokkarinen at Feb 24, 2006 11:00:04 AM
"How about the trade-off between quality and quantity of children? A genetically talented father with many wives will likely maximize the quantity of children rather than their quality. This has a long-run negative externality, especially if you believe in the Lucas-Uzawa models of
economic growth, or some approximation thereof."
But there's a positive externality from genetically talented fathers having more kids, and from genetically less talented fathers having fewer kids.
Now the genetically talented father might be having his kids from several genetically less talented women, but his genes still contribute, and those women would otherwise be having babies with genetically less talented men, so there's an overall improvement.
Posted by: Ken at Feb 24, 2006 11:35:17 AM
"Economists might question how polygamy makes women worse off, since they can always decline the arrangement."
In polygamous societies that I know of the woman is never given a choice, let alone an economically realistic one.
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at Feb 24, 2006 11:40:31 AM
For the reasons Ken gives, I think that any conclusion about the quantity/quality divide would have to assume quite a bit more than we know about the relative importance of genetics vs. the importance of investment/attention/etc.
Posted by: Thomas at Feb 24, 2006 11:47:15 AM
"How about the trade-off between quality and quantity of children?"
I don't get it. It's not as though wives 2 through N would simply have failed to reproduce if they had lived in a non-polygynous society; instead they would have married (presumably) genetically inferior men and had their children. Assuming a positive correlation between genetic quality and number of wives, and assuming also that the number of children a woman has does not depend on how many wives her husband has, polygyny should be expected to increase genetic quality.
Posted by: Brandon Berg at Feb 24, 2006 12:29:06 PM
Most of the comments seem to have in mind a society with relatively equal income distribution. but if you have a society with extremely unequal income distribution wouldn't you have a situation where the man that could afford multiple wives would also be able to provide his children a much richer educational--social environment then the much poorer male that could not afford multiple wives?
Of course this also goes to the comments about nature vs nuture.
Posted by: spencer at Feb 24, 2006 12:34:52 PM
Interesting to observe which commenters assume "quality of children" referred to genetic quality rather than investment in upbringing.
Posted by: Noah Yetter at Feb 24, 2006 12:50:46 PM
Why couldn't we also have situations in which one wife has several husbands?
Posted by: Chris at Feb 24, 2006 1:03:35 PM
"Why couldn't we also have situations in which one wife has several husbands?"
Basic human nature. Men are much too competitive and jealous to share women with other men. Women are different.
Posted by: Peter at Feb 24, 2006 1:24:35 PM
The quality vs quantity argument seems to be missing a crucial lower bound. If the system of gender relations results in the number of children per woman falling below the replacement rate then the system will not be sustainable. Relatively wealthy nations with Enlightened gender relations find their populations dwindling even though the resources per child are higher than many parts of the world. At some point the extra quality (measured by resources and/or genetics)doesn't compensate for quantity.
Posted by: tedm at Feb 24, 2006 1:34:48 PM
"The bottom line? We should encourage family structures that spur human capital formation."
Huh? In any event, the fact that polygyny has been the preferred marriage form throughout history should be grist for the mill here as well, no?
Posted by: janem at Feb 24, 2006 2:35:19 PM
From whence comes the notion that the man with several wives is genetically superior and produces genetically superior children? Reducing the number of males who reproduce reduces the genetic diversity of the population. Recessive genes that may be rarely a problem would become common enough to produce significant genetic problems as it becomes more likely that a child inherits two copies of a bad gene. Polygyny is just another name for inbreeding.
Posted by: Max at Feb 24, 2006 2:44:58 PM
"From whence comes the notion that the man with several wives is genetically superior and produces genetically superior children? "
From assumptions (a) we're dealing with a capitalist society where better and smarter men earn more money and thus are able to support more wives and children and (b) women tend to flock to the men with money, all else being equal.
"Reducing the number of males who reproduce reduces the genetic diversity of the population. "
Well, yes. Natural selection does tend to reduce genetic diversity, since it eliminates genes but doesn't by itself produce new ones. This doesn't mean that it's bad for the species overall.
"Recessive genes that may be rarely a problem would become common enough to produce significant genetic problems as it becomes more likely that a child inherits two copies of a bad gene. "
If you've got a decent overall population size, this isn't much of an issue.
Posted by: Ken at Feb 24, 2006 3:04:25 PM
Doesn't all this talk about "genetic quality" vs. quantity imply a one-dimensional view of quality? Isn't that an absurd way to think?
Given two people who differ in intelligence, talents, health, physical abilities, hair color, etc. it is meaningless at best to discuss which is "genetically inferior." And it is truly frightening that this thread just skips past the issue.
Theer is an economic point here as well, though it is dwarfed by the moral issue. Doesn't a diversity of talents lead, among other things, to a more prosperous society, as individuals are able to profitably specialize and engage in trade.
Posted by: Bernard Yomtov at Feb 24, 2006 3:12:09 PM
"The new HBO series Big Love presents a polygamous family, raising the obvious questions."
And here I was thinking the obvious question was whether they were going to show some hot 2-on-1 sex scenes.
Posted by: Brian McDaniel at Feb 24, 2006 3:34:01 PM
"You would rather be in a society with fewer but more talented people."
Maybe, but I'd really like to have two wives.
Posted by: Andrew at Feb 24, 2006 4:17:29 PM
