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Does grandpa matter?
Even fathers with only one wife provided no [longevity] benefit to their grandchildren, a finding supported by previous research.
That is based on a study of Finnish church data from the 18th and 19th centuries. The thrust of the entire piece is the claim that polygamous men will live longer than monogamous men. But note, all you Lotharios out there, this result is correlated with actual [multiple] marriage, not running around in bars and the like.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on August 25, 2008 at 01:22 PM in Science | Permalink
Comments
I just sent a copy of the article to my wife; she informed me that my taking a second wife would dramatically shorten my lifespan.
That aside, I wonder if the authors of the study adjusted for selection bias. I would think that healthier, more alert men would have an easier time getting more wives, and would be more likely to have the income to afford more.
Posted by: Acad ronin at Aug 25, 2008 1:51:59 PM
I would also be interested in the correlation of a traditional religious lifestyle and polygamy. The comparative lack of unhealthy vices could play a role.
Posted by: Bryan at Aug 25, 2008 5:18:08 PM
I think I'd just have more to live for if I had a bevy of wives.
Posted by: David at Aug 25, 2008 10:31:53 PM
Does the age of the second wife matter? Is this proof that you really are only as old as the woman you feel?
Posted by: jb at Aug 26, 2008 4:25:07 AM
Erm, in a polygamous society it's the alpha males that get all the wives. The beta males get no wives at all.
http://www.eqsq.com/vivreladifference/2008/08/23/polygamy-makes-men-live-longer/
Alpha males live longer than betas? That's not really a noteworthy finding, is it?
Posted by: Tim Worstall at Aug 26, 2008 5:58:28 AM
"After accounting for socioeconomic differences, men aged over 60 from 140 countries that practice polygamy to varying degrees lived on average 12% longer than men from 49 mostly monogamous nations, says Virpi Lummaa, an ecologist at the University of Sheffield, UK"
A more likely alternative explanation is that polygamy lowers the socioeconomic state of the country below what the bodily vigor of the inhabitants would suggest.
Posted by: Steve Sailer at Aug 26, 2008 5:58:57 AM
Reading the article more closely, it does not say that polygamous men live longer than monogamous men. It merely says that men who live in polygamous societies live longer than men who live in monogamous societies. There is no individual tracking of men to count how many wives they have, nor would it even be possible to do so on a global scale.
It's not clear who gets the greater longevity benefit in polygamous societies. It may be the polygamous alpha males, because they monopolize the women and are well cared for, or perhaps simply because they were rich and powerful to being with. But conceivably "non-ogamous" beta males in a polygamous society, especially in a subsistence economy, might benefit by being free of the hardships of supporting a wife and children. They could work less hard and live a more relaxed and hedonistic lifestyle; or conversely, they might be strongly motivated towards self-improvement and remaining fit in the hope of getting a wife, rather than getting paunchy and going to seed as many married men do.
Posted by: at Aug 26, 2008 10:19:12 AM
Reading the article even more closely, we must take this "result" with a gigantic grain of salt.
The researchers count only 49 monogamous nations (!), but 140 countries where polygamy is practiced to varying degrees!! This is, to put it mildly, utter nonsense. Three dozen European countries, a dozen South American, half-dozen Central American, Canada, US, Mexico, Cuba, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Korea, China... without the slightest effort we can already find well over 60 countries with monogamous marriage laws. The math cannot possibly add up.
This makes no sense whatsoever unless the researchers are equating sexually permissive societies with polygamy (the exact opposite of Tyler's concluding sentence above). Or perhaps they are counting the US as a society where polygamy is practiced "to varying degrees" because of the existence of a handful of fundamentalist unreformed Mormons.
Let's see the list of 49 nations. I smell bullshit.
Posted by: at Aug 26, 2008 10:50:28 AM
It is highly probable that men with multiple wives live longer than comparable men with one wife, on average, given that women would disproportionately choose fitter men, and that such men would also benefit physically and psychologically from the arrangement. (Lots of evidence shows that we are disproportionally descended from such polygynous men)
But it is certainly not plausible that polygynous nations have people with longer average lifespans. We can easily mentally compare the lifespans in the Middle-East and Africa with Northern Asia and Europe in our heads. Any "control" for economic development is more than a little dubious.
Posted by: Jason Malloy at Aug 26, 2008 9:52:58 PM
Such kinds of claims are extremely difficult to be made. Are such scientific studies accurate? Such matters are subjective. No general conclusion can be made.
Having in mind that it is based only on representatives from 49 nations, that immediately makes it invalid for the whole world. It does not even say what kind of countries it took place at. The culture and the standard of living should also play a major role, as well as history.
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