The more the merrier?

Many, if not most, societies practiced polygyny (one man having multiple wives) in the past. However, Western societies have generally moved to ban polygamy generally. Polyandry (one woman having many husbands) is rare, and is practiced in some parts of Tibet and India.

Polygyny has been generally associated with gender inequality. Apparently studies of polygynous societies indicate women in such societies are oppressed, threatened or disempowered. Usually only “high status” men can afford to support multiple wives and children. By the same token, usually educated and well-off women do not choose to enter into polygynous relationships.

Most social scientists argue that polygamy is designed to ensure male reproductive success, and it is a result of a man’s choice, not a woman’s choice. Often subsequent wives are much younger than their husbands. In addition, subsequent wives are often lower in the pecking order than “primary wives”. Nonetheless, other social scientists argue that women are in a position to demand choice in marriage, and thus if polygyny is the practice, it must be as a result of female choice, perhaps to maximise help with child rearing or the like. In the Washington Post article I linked to above, one Mormon indicates that his wives had to work to convince him to take more than one wife, saying:

“Usually the women tend to be the biggest advocates of this way of life and men enter it more timidly. … If you are going to do it right, it’s a huge responsibility.”

So it seems to be true that some women choose to enter such a relationship freely.

In some places, polygamy has been used in place of divorce where there are limited grounds for divorce. In fact, well back in our own family tree, my mother has found a couple of instances of bigamy. Presumably, the bigamous party was not able to divorce his or her spouse, and so seems to have concealed the existence of a previous spouse in order to marry again. In one case, as far as we can work out, one of my forebears seems to have had two wives simultaneously who lived a few houses away from each other, and who both had children by him. Unless there were two men of that name living in the same street?

Social scientists have various explanations for the practice of polygamy. Multiple wives seem to be a status symbol for powerful and sexually dominant men. Some social scientists argue that once societies become more democratic, there is a “male compromise”. Wealthy, powerful men surrender polygamy in exchange for political support from poor men. This means that men now have equality of reproductive opportunity. There is a strong correlation between liberal democracy and monogamous marriage.

This brings into relief the problems of cultural relativism. There can be two feminist arguments here. What do we prioritise, gender equality or religious/cultural practice? Secular feminists, of course, tend to prioritise to gender equality, whereas multicultural/religious feminists tend to prioritise religious freedom.

The late Susan Moller Okin, a feminist author, wrote a paper entitled “Is Multiculturalism Bad For Women?” She argues that there is a tension between feminism and a multiculturalist commitment to group rights for minority cultures. This is in part because many culturally-based customs aim to control women and make women serve men’s desires and interests (especially sexually and reproductively). Okin notes that most of the “cultural defences” in the criminal law relate to men’s cultural power to control women:

• the Hmong “marriage by capture” defence: employed by Hmong men who kidnap and rape women;
• the cultural provocation defence: i.e. men were provoked into killing their wife because the woman committed adultery or treated the husband in a way which lacked “respect”, and that this is particularly provoking in the culture from which the man came;
• the mother-child suicide defence: mothers from Japanese or Chinese backgrounds who kill their children, but fail in their attempt to kill themselves, undertook this action because they were shamed by their husband’s infidelity;
• the argument that some cultures should be allowed to practice clitoridectomy.

I would add to this:

• the “honour killing defence”: the idea that a man killing a female relative is explicable because the woman has dishonoured him by engaging in a relationship with a man who was not acceptable to her family; and
• the “child marriage” defence: the argument by some indigenous communities that young women who have been raped by elder men were “promised” in marriage in an allowed cultural practice.