Serial monogamy and hypergamous women

In her analysis, Dr. Borgerhoff Mulder found that although Pimbwe men
were somewhat more likely than their female counterparts to marry
multiple times, women held their own and even outshone men in the upper
Zsa Zsa Gabor end of the scale, of five consecutive spouses and
counting. And when Dr. Borgerhoff Mulder looked at who extracted the
greatest reproductive payoff from serial monogamy, as measured by who
had the most children survive past the first five hazardous years of
life, she found a small but significant advantage female. Women who
worked their way through more than two husbands had, on average, higher
reproductive success, a greater number of surviving children, than
either the more sedately mating women, or than men regardless of
wifetime total.

Here is more.  I believe those last two words — "wifetime total" — should in fact be "lifetime total."  This was interesting:

Provocatively, the character sketches of the male versus female
serialists proved to be inversely related. Among the women, those with
the greatest number of spouses were themselves considered high-quality
mates, the hardest working, the most reliable, with scant taste for the
strong maize beer the Pimbwe famously brew. Among the men, by contrast,
the higher the nuptial count, the lower the customer ranking, and the
likelier the men were to be layabout drunks.

“We’re so wedded
to the model that men will benefit from multiple marriages and women
won’t, that women are victims of the game,” Dr. Borgerhoff Mulder said.
“But what my data suggest is that Pimbwe women are strategically
choosing men, abandoning men and remarrying men as their economic
situation goes up and down.”

Dare one whisper "hypergamy"?

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