Economists and Polygamy

There's an interesting post at the economics blog Marginal Revolution entitled What's Wrong With Polygamy? It includes a link to this paper in which three economists develop a model of the marriage market. The paper "examines why developed countries are monogamous while rich men throughout history have tended to produce polygyny (multiple wives)." When it comes to the evolution of social norms, I much prefer anthropologists, who are obsessed with cultural details and take them seriously, to economists, who ignore them. Thus we read, for example: "A key assumption of the model is that high quality men and women are more efficient in producing higher quality children, which generates a comparative advantage for high quality parents in raising higher quality children." That's culture to an economist: people are high-quality or low-quality.

Anyway, the interesting comments at Marginal Revolution deserve futher discussion: Polygamy does not contradict the idea of quality children, relative to available alternatives: the kids get papa's good genes and full-time attention from mama. If "good genes" are the only input papa gets, that's hardly high-quality parenting. And the real-world example I'm familiar with via reading, LDS polygamy in 19th- and 20th-century Utah, generally led to poverty as well as absentee fathers, hardly conducive to producing "high-quality children."

MR continues: Keep in mind if this is worse on average than other options, women won't want the deal. That assumes young women of marriageable age are free to choose, which is often not the case (although it is an assumption of the economic models of marriage, it seems). In patriarchal systems, patriarchs make important decisions, including who gets the young marriageable women or girls. If Papa thinks little Susie ought to marry Uncle Burt, the fact that little Susie doesn't want the deal might not carry much weight.

Next, MR states: If there is a social cost from polygamy, it more likely stems from the young men who cannot find wives and resort to violence and risky behavior. Okay, but let's not forget the young women. In a utilitarian maximization model, it seems like decreased happiness (or utility) of young women is also a social cost.

Finally, this: Polygamy ends when children cease to be a net economic asset. As society progresses and urbanizes, there are cheaper ways of having sex with multiple women, if that is one's goal. When I do this -- equating "polygamy" with a way of "having sex with multiple women" -- conservative Mormons get shrill very quickly. If MR is suggesting that polygamy as discussed in the paper or in general is (despite the preceeding economic context) simply a way to have sex with multiple women, then it seems the "marriage model" needs to incorporate sex drives, choices, and constraints. For example, one might hypothesize that power leads to greater sexual appetite, then in societies where polygamy is discretionary those higher up the social or hierarchical ladder would be more likely to enter into polygamy as a means of "having sex with multiple women." At least that's one way of incorporating MR's suggestion into the "marriage model."

Comments

[clark]

The other problem is that the model of 19th century polygamy in Utah illustrates that polygamy led to fewer children overall. That's important since a lot of 20th century apologetics, latching onto Jacob 2, defended it in terms of raising up children. Yet a more efficient method would be to have monogamy.

Of course one could argue that most of the people practicing polygamy also were often given to missions or political responsibility which decreased significantly the amount of sex that could result in posterity. (Something else to keep in mind when saying 19th century polygamy was about sex -- the men were absent enough that I don't think there was a lot of sex going on as can be seen by the relatively few children per woman of the era) There were exceptions of course. But then the whole 19th century polygamy among the Mormons was kind of weird all around for a variety of reasons.

[Dave]

Clark, I think every society that practices polygamy will be odd in some way, simply by virtue of being a particular society. The paper that the post linked to applied the model to 1986 cross-sectional data from Cote d'Ivoire. The paper noted that 41% of the women between 18 and 40 were living in a polygamous marriage, with a lower percentage for Catholic women and a higher percentage for Muslim women.

[Darren]

One other flaw that I see, using the "sex with multiple women" model, is that two or three women are still not quite enough. I assume that most philanderers would be quite displeased with being restricted to 2, 3, or even 6 women. Power/sex hungry men usually feel pride in the conquest, with the feeling not lasting long enough for marriage. I would also assume that more than one wife would not be worth the bother or expense for these guys.

[sara]

I didn't see the book Under the Banner of Heaven?

[J. Stapley]

19th Mormon polygamy was iconoclastic in nature. It was defying convention with what was considered a superior value structure. I just skimmed the paper, but there are a lot of aspects of the model that seem anachronistic when applied to 19th Mormonism.

On a side note, the Appendices delineate their model and shows how they tried to break out the variance by religion:

Muslim Men
Anamist Men
Catholic Men
Protestant Men
Other Christian Men
Other Religion Men

What are “Other Christian Men”? We used to have a mission there, but Mormons account for only 0.05% of the population so I would think it was not us.

[Clark Goble]

By odd Dave, I meant that the system hadn't been given the time to normalize. The practice was forced underground fairly quickly. The main practitioners were usually away due to religious or political commitments. There was constant war or similar conflict. Further there was only 40 years when the practice was semi-public. It also took place during a period of massive immigration and colonization of a desert.

It's simply hard to tell if the activities would be similar were there less stresses and more familiarity with the practice.

[APJ]

Dave, I agree that one of the potential evil's of polygamy is that it 'lures' in young women who may be vulnerable or influenced by a patriarchal society structure.

But I'm not as convinced of your point that it can't be a high-quality family situation. Perhaps the 'dad has good genes' argument isn't all that convincing either, but to say that we mainly have negative accounts of polygamy probably says a little more about the kind of materials we decide to read than about an empirical understanding of what life was like in a polygamist home in the 19th (or 20th) century.

I'm not defending polygamy as preferable, but I think it can be practiced in such a way as to provide a high-quality upbringing, just like a monogamous relationship.

[Steve Marsh (Ethesis)]

Interesting how the paper conflates "high quality" with "spends time/resources on accumulating money."

Reminds me of the quote that a man will forgive you killing his father faster than he will your taking his money from a famous Italian Philosopher.

Of course that is true of someone who puts money first (and who is most likely to have it to take away if you are the Prince). Had a long discussion about that with my daughter last night.

But the posters have caught the core of the LDS experience, which is that polygamy as practiced never fully jelled into a normative practice or situation (similar to people being sealed to each other for all sorts of reasons -- that entire process took a long time to sort out).

Which is why the millineum will be a thousand years of temple work, among other things, sorting out the paperwork in Heaven, by proxy, for all the relationships we got wrong before.

[Christian Cardall]

Clark, Jacob 2 doesn't just say `raise up children,' it says `raise up children unto the Lord.' Who the children are being born to and how they'll be trained may have been more important than how many total children are born. Recall that this point was made in infamous remarks by Orson Pratt in the (1852?) address announcing polygamy to the world.

[Nathan]

Steve, why would you be taking a man's money from a famous Italian philosopher? For that matter, why would the philosopher have the man's money in the first place?

[clark]

Christian, I'm not sure I buy that line of reasoning. For one the children born to general authorities especially Orson Pratt were largely neglected by the father. When one father has so many kids and simultaneously is being called away regularly to foreign missions, it's hard to devote much time to each kid.

Secondly, a big problem in polygamist societies including LDS ones is that young less powerful single males don't have an opportunity to find spouses as easily. Some of this was alievieted by taking wives from converts (which had its own share of problems, as Pratt's brother found)

It seems far better use of resources to have righteous men spending as much time with children as possible than to have a few righteous men spend little time with many kids.

[Christian Cardall]

Clark, I agree with your criticisms in practical terms. I was just trying to clarify how one would make an argument reconciling Jacob 2 with the empirical outcome of Utah polygamy. These criticisms you give go beyond that, and I largely agree with them.

[Don]

When does the number of children get to the point that Dad can't or doesn't spend enough time with each of them. To the world today 1 or maybe 2 is plenty. We had 6 children and though I wish I would have spent more time with them, ask them and I don't think they'll say they were deprived of my time. If I would have had 9 would it have made a difference. What number becomes too many.

[Ann]

The children born in polygamous families were often raised by especially devout and committed women. Also, the active, engaged father is largely a modern construct. I think "raise up a seed unto me" is a valid argument for the transient nature of the commandment (if it was one) for the early Saints to practice plural marriage.

There absolutely was a hierarchy of participation in polygamy among the early saints, and one could certainly identify who the powerful men were by the number of their wives.

One of the more spirited defenses of polygamy by Helen Mar Kimball Smith Whitney pointed out the hypocrisy of the monogamous system, and how polygamy allowed men to not be corrupted by it. I have interpreted this as: powerful men usually had a little something on the side. In polygamy, men married their "little something on the side."