Contents.Terminology The word monogamy derives from the μονός, monos ('alone'), and γάμος, gamos ('marriage').The term 'monogamy' may be referring to one of various relational types, depending upon context. Generally, there are four overlapping definitions. marital monogamy refers to of only two people. social monogamy refers to two partners living together, having sex with each other, and cooperating in acquiring basic resources such as shelter, food and money. sexual monogamy refers to two partners remaining sexually exclusive with each other and having no outside sex partners. genetic monogamy refers to sexually monogamous relationships with genetic evidence of paternity.For instance, biologists, and often use monogamy in the sense of sexual, if not genetic (reproductive), exclusivity. When cultural or social anthropologists and other use the term monogamy, the meaning is social or marital monogamy.Marital monogamy may be further distinguished between:.

• Disadvantages Of Monogamy
• Advantages And Disadvantages Of Serial Monogamy Meaning
• Advantages And Disadvantages Of Solar Energy

classical monogamy, 'a single relationship between people who marry as virgins, remain sexually exclusive their entire lives, and become celibate upon the death of the partner'., marriage with only one other person at a time, in contrast to or;Frequency in humans. A pair of parrots at Biological arguments Monogamy exists in many societies around the world, and it is important to understand how these marriage systems might have evolved. In any species, there are three main aspects that combine to promote a monogamous mating system: paternal care, resource access, and mate-choice; however, in humans, the main theoretical sources of monogamy are paternal care and extreme ecological stresses. Paternal care should be particularly important in humans due to the extra nutritional requirement of having larger brains and the lengthier developmental period. Therefore, the evolution of monogamy could be a reflection of this increased need for bi-parental care. Similarly, monogamy should evolve in areas of ecological stress because male should be higher if their resources are focused on ensuring offspring survival rather than searching for other mates.

However, the evidence does not support these claims. Due to the extreme sociality and increased intelligence of humans, H. Sapiens have solved many problems that generally lead to monogamy, such as those mentioned above. For example, monogamy is certainly correlated with paternal care, as shown by Marlowe, but not caused by it because humans diminish the need for bi-parental care through the aid of siblings and other family members in rearing the offspring.

Furthermore, human intelligence and material culture allows for better adaptation to different and rougher ecological areas, thus reducing the causation and even correlation of monogamous marriage and extreme climates. However, some scientists argue that monogamy evolved by reducing within-group conflict, thus giving certain groups a competitive advantage against less monogamous groups.Paleoanthropology and genetic studies offer two perspectives on when monogamy evolved in the human species: paleoanthropologists offer tentative evidence that monogamy may have evolved very early in human history whereas genetic studies show that monogamy evolved much more recently, less than 10,000 to 20,000 years ago. Males are not monogamous and compete for access to females.Paleoanthropological estimates of the time frame for the evolution of monogamy are primarily based on the level of seen in the fossil record because, in general, the reduced male-male competition seen in monogamous mating results in reduced sexual dimorphism. According to Reno et al., the sexual dimorphism of Australopithecus afarensis, a human ancestor from approximately 3.9–3.0 million years ago, was within the modern human range, based on dental and postcranial morphology. Although careful not to say that this indicates monogamous mating in early, the authors do say that reduced levels of sexual dimorphism in A. Afarensis 'do not imply that monogamy is any less probable than polygyny'. However, Gordon, Green and Richmond claim that in examining postcranial remains, A.

Afarensis is more sexually dimorphic than modern humans and chimps with levels closer to those of orangutans and gorillas. Furthermore, Homo habilis, living approximately 2.3 mya, is the most sexually dimorphic early hominid.

Plavcan and van Schaik conclude their examination of this controversy by stating that, overall, sexual dimorphism in australopithecines is not indicative of any behavioral implications or mating systems. Cultural arguments. Woman farming, using a in the, South Sudan.Betzig postulated that culture/society can also be a source of social monogamy by enforcing it through rules and laws set by third-party actors, usually in order to protect the wealth or power of the elite. For example, Augustus Caesar encouraged marriage and reproduction to force the aristocracy to divide their wealth and power among multiple heirs, but the aristocrats kept their socially monogamous, legitimate children to a minimum to ensure their legacy while having many extra-pair copulations.

Similarly—according to Betzig—the enforced monogamy because wealth passed to the closest living, legitimate male relative, often resulting in the wealthy oldest brother being without a male heir. Thus, the wealth and power of the family would pass to the “celibate” younger brother of the church. In both of these instances, the rule-making elite used cultural processes to ensure greater reproductive fitness for themselves and their offspring, leading to a larger genetic influence in future generations. Furthermore, the, in particular, were important in the evolution of social monogamy in humans. They allowed, even encouraged, poor men to marry and produce offspring, which reduced the gap in reproductive success between the rich and poor, thus resulting in the quick spread of monogamous marriage systems in the western world. According to B. Low, culture would appear to have a much larger impact on monogamy in humans than the biological forces that are important for non-human animals.Other theorists use cultural factors influencing reproductive success to explain monogamy.

During times of major economic/demographic transitions, investing more in fewer offspring (social monogamy not polygyny) increases reproductive success by ensuring the offspring themselves have enough initial wealth to be successful. This is seen in both England and Sweden during the industrial revolution and is currently being seen in the modernization of rural Ethiopia. Similarly, in modern industrialized societies, fewer yet better-invested offspring, i.e. Social monogamy, can provide a reproductive advantage over social polygyny, but this still allows for serial monogamy and extra-pair copulations. Arguments from outside the scientific community (later, Pope John Paul II) in his book postulated that monogamy, as an institutional union of two people being in with one another, was an embodiment of an personalistic norm, and thus the only means of making true human love possible.

Some writers have suggested that monogamy may solve the problems they view as associated with non-monogamy and such as.in Make Way for the Winged Eros argues that monogamy is an artifact of capitalist concepts of property and inheritance and wrote, 'The social aims of the working class are not affected one bit by whether love takes the form of a long and official union or is expressed in a temporary relationship. The ideology of the working class does not place any formal limits on love.' Later, 'Modern love always sins, because it absorbs the thoughts and feelings of 'loving hearts' and isolates the loving pair from the collective. In the future society, such a separation will not only become superfluous but also psychologically inconceivable.'

One of the tenets of the new proletarian morality is 'mutual recognition of the rights of the other, of the fact that one does not own the heart and soul of the other (the sense of property, encouraged by bourgeois culture).' Ancient societies The historical record offers contradictory evidence on the development and extent of monogamy as a social practice.

Laura Betzig argues that in the six large, highly stratified early states, commoners were generally monogamous but that elites practiced de facto polygyny. Those states included Mesopotamia, Egypt, Aztec Mexico, Inca Peru, India and China. Tribal societies Monogamy has appeared in some traditional tribal societies such as the, in Burma, and in northern Eurasia, and the of the United States, apparently unrelated to the development of the Judeo-Christian monogamous paradigm. Ancient Mesopotamia and Assyria Both the Babylonian and Assyrian families were monogamous in principle but not entirely so in practice since polygyny was frequently practiced by the rulers.In the patriarchal society of Mesopotamia the nuclear family was called a 'house'.

In order 'to build a house' a man was supposed to marry one woman and if she did not provide him with offspring, he could take a second wife. The states that he loses his right to do so if the wife herself gives him a slave as. According to texts, he could be obliged to wait for two or three years before he was allowed to take another wife.

The position of the second wife was that of a 'slave girl' in respect to the first wife, as many marriage contracts explicitly state. Ancient Egypt Although an Egyptian man was free to marry several women at a time, and some wealthy men from and did have more than one wife, monogamy was the norm. There may have been some exceptions, e.g. A official stated as proof of his love to his deceased wife that he had stayed married to her since their youth, even after he had become very successful (P.

Leiden I 371). This may suggest that some men abandoned first wives of a low social status and married women of higher status in order to further their careers although even then they lived with only one wife. Egyptian women had right to ask for a divorce if her husband took a second wife. Many tomb reliefs testify to monogamous character of Egyptian marriages, officials are usually accompanied by a supportive wife. 'His wife X, his beloved' is the standard phrase identifying wives in tomb inscriptions.

The instruction texts belonging to wisdom literature, e.g. Or, support fidelity to monogamous marriage life, calling the wife a Lady of the house. The suggests that it is wrong to abandon a wife because of her barrenness. Ancient Israel As against Betzig's contention that monogamy evolved as a result of Christian socio-economic influence in the West, monogamy appeared widespread in the much earlier. In Israel's pre-Christian era, an essentially monogamous underlay the Jewish creation story ( 2) and the last chapter of.

During the (530 BCE to 70 CE), apart from an economic situation which supported monogamy even more than in earlier period, the concept of 'mutual fidelity' between husband and wife was a quite common reason for strictly monogamous marriages. Some marriage documents explicitly expressed a desire for the marriage to remain monogamous. Examples of these documents were found in. They resemble those found in neighbouring.

Study shows that ancient Middle East societies, though not strictly monogamous, were practically (at least on commoners' level) monogamous. Of the saw prohibition of polygamy as coming from the ( 4:20–5:5, one of the ). Christianity adopted a similar attitude (cf. 3:2,12; 1:6), which conformed with approach., in contrast, states that 'Polygyny continued to be practised well into the biblical period, and it is attested among Jews as late as the second century CE.' Under and the monarchy, old restrictions went into disuse, especially among royalty, though the and, which cover entire period of monarchy, do not record a single case of bigamy among commoners — except for 's father. The wisdom books e.g., which provides a picture of the society, portray a woman in a strictly monogamous family (cf.

Pr 5:15-19; Qo 9:9; Si 26:1-4 and eulogy of perfect wife, Proverbs 31:10-31). The speaks solely of monogamous marriages. Also prophets have in front of their eyes monogamous marriage as an image of the relationship of God and Israel.

2:4f; 2:2; 50:1; 54:6-7; 62:4-5; Ez 16). States that 'it is clear that the most common form of marriage in Israel was monogamy'.The and the clearly reflect a monogamist viewpoint within Judaism ( 2:10 etc.). Some sages condemned marriage to two wives even for the purpose of procreation (Ketubot 62b). Ammi, an amora states:Whoever takes a second wife in addition to his first one shall divorce the first and pay her kettubah (Yevamot 65a)Roman customs, which prohibited polygamy, may have enhanced such an attitude - especially after 212 AD, when all the Jews became Roman citizens. However, some Jews continued to practice bigamy (e.g. Up to medieval times in Egypt and Europe). Fourth-century Roman law forbade Jews to contract plural marriages.A synod convened by around 1000 CE banned polygamy among and Jews.

Ancient Greece and ancient Rome The ancient Greeks and Romans were monogamous in the sense that men were not allowed to have more than one wife or to cohabit with concubines during marriage. Early Christianity According to Jesus Christ monogamy was a primordial will of the Creator described in Genesis, darkened by the hardness of hearts of the Israelites. As John Paul II interpreted the dialogue between Jesus and the ( 19:3–8), Christ emphasized the primordial beauty of monogamic spousal described in the Book of Genesis 1:26–31, 2:4–25, whereby a man and woman by their nature are each ready to be a beautifying, total and gift to one another:Jesus avoids entangling himself in juridical or casuistic controversies; instead, he appeals twice to the 'beginning'. By doing so, he clearly refers to the relevant words of Genesis, which his interlocutors also know by heart. (.) it clearly leads the interlocutors to reflect about the way in which, in the mystery of creation, man was formed precisely as 'male and female,' in order to understand correctly the normative meaning of the words of Genesis. Contemporary societies International Western European societies established monogamy as their marital norm. Monogamous marriage is normative and is legally enforced in most developed countries.

Laws prohibiting polygyny were adopted in Japan (1880), China (1953), India (1955) and Nepal (1963). Polyandry is illegal in most countries.The movements seek to make monogamy the only legal form of marriage. The in 1979 adopted the, Article 16 of which requires nations to give women and men equal rights in marriage. Polygamy is viewed as inconsistent with the Article as it gives men the right of multiple wives, but not to women. The United Nations has established the (CEDAW) to monitor the progress of nations implementing the Convention.People's Republic of China. Main article:The founders of determined that monogamous marriage inherently oppressed women and therefore had no place in communist society. Stated that compulsory monogamy could only lead to increased prostitution and general immorality, with the benefits of restricting capital and solidifying the class structure.

As he spelled out in (1884),The first class antagonism which appears in history coincides with the development of the antagonism between man and woman in monogamian marriage, and the first class oppression with that of the female sex by the male. The wellbeing and development of the one group are attained by the misery and repression of the other.The monogamous family is distinguished from the pairing family by the far greater durability of wedlock, which can no longer be dissolved at the pleasure of either party. As a rule, it is only the man who can still dissolve it and cast off his wife.However, the communist revolutionaries in China chose to take the Western viewpoint of monogamy as giving women and men equal rights in marriage. The newly formed Communist government established monogamy as the only legal form of marriage.'

The 1950 Marriage Law called for sweeping changes in many areas of family life. It forbade any 'arbitrary and compulsory' form of marriage that would be based on the superiority of men and would ignore women’s interests. The new democratic marriage system was based on the free choice of couples, monogamy, equal rights for both sexes, and the protection of the lawful interests of women. It abolished the begetting of male offspring as the principal purpose of marriage and weakened kinship ties which reduced the pressure on women to bear many children, especially sons. With arranged marriages prohibited, young women could choose their own marriage partners, share the financial cost of setting up a new household, and have equal status in household and family decision-making. The Government then initiated an extensive campaign of marriage-law education, working jointly with the Communist Party, women’s federations, trade unions, the armed forces, schools and other organizations.' Africa The has adopted the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa (the ).

While the protocol does not suggest making polygamous marriage illegal, Article 6 does state that 'monogamy is encouraged as the preferred form of marriage and that the rights of women in marriage and family, including in polygamous marital relationships are promoted and protected.' The protocol entered into force on 25 November 2005.Varieties in biology Recent discoveries have led biologists to talk about the three varieties of monogamy: social monogamy, sexual monogamy, and genetic monogamy. The distinction between these three are important to the modern understanding of monogamy.Monogamous pairs of animals are not always sexually exclusive. Many animals that form pairs to mate and raise offspring regularly engage in sexual activities with partners other than their primary mate.

This is called. Sometimes these extra-pair sexual activities lead to offspring. Genetic tests frequently show that some of the offspring raised by a monogamous pair come from the female mating with an extra-pair male partner.

These discoveries have led biologists to adopt new ways of talking about monogamy. Social monogamy refers to a male and female's social living arrangement (e.g., shared use of a territory, behaviour indicative of a social pair, and/or proximity between a male and female) without inferring any sexual interactions or reproductive patterns. In humans, social monogamy equals. Sexual monogamy is defined as an exclusive sexual relationship between a female and a male based on observations of sexual interactions. Finally, the term genetic monogamy is used when DNA analyses can confirm that a female-male pair reproduce exclusively with each other. A combination of terms indicates examples where levels of relationships coincide, e.g., sociosexual and sociogenetic monogamy describe corresponding social and sexual, and social and genetic monogamous relationships, respectively.Reichard, 2003, (p. 4)Whatever makes a pair of animals socially monogamous does not necessarily make them sexually or genetically monogamous.

Social monogamy, sexual monogamy, and genetic monogamy can occur in different combinations.Social monogamy does not always involve marriage in humans. A married couple is almost always a socially monogamous couple.

But couples who choose to without getting married can also be socially monogamous. The popular science author Matt Ridley in his book The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature, described the human mating system as 'monogamy plagued by adultery'.Serial monogamy Serial monogamy is a mating practice in which individuals may engage in sequential monogamous pairings, or in terms of humans, when men or women can marry another partner but only after ceasing to be married to the previous partner.One theory is that this pattern pacifies the elite men and equalizes reproductive success.

This is called the Male Compromise Theory. Such serial monogamy may effectively resemble polygyny in its reproductive consequences because some men are able to utilize more than one woman’s reproductive lifespan through repeated marriages.Serial monogamy may also refer to sequential sexual relationships, irrespective of marital status. A pair of humans may remain sexually exclusive, or monogamous, until the relationship has ended and then each may go on to form a new exclusive pairing with a different partner. This pattern of serial monogamy is common among people in Western cultures. Reproductive success Evolutionary theory predicts that males would be apt to seek more mating partners than females because they obtain higher reproductive benefits from such a strategy. Men with more serial marriages are likely to have more children than men with only one spouse, where the same is not true of women with consecutive spouses. A study done in 1994 found that remarried men often had a larger age difference from their spouses than men who were married for the first time, suggesting that serial monogamy helps some men extract a longer reproductive window from their spouses.

Breakup Serial monogamy has always been closely linked to practices. Whenever procedures for obtaining divorce have been simple and easy, serial monogamy has been found. As divorce has continued to become more accessible, more individuals have availed themselves of it, and many go on to remarry. Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice: Why less is more, further suggests that Western culture's inundation of choice has devalued relationships based on lifetime commitments and singularity of choice. It has been suggested, however, that high mortality rates in centuries past accomplished much the same result as divorce, enabling remarriage (of one spouse) and thus serial monogamy. Mating system. Main article:Monogamy is one of several observed in animals.

However, a pair of animals may be socially monogamous but that does not necessarily make them sexually or genetically monogamous. Social monogamy, sexual monogamy, and genetic monogamy can occur in different combinations.Social monogamy refers to the overtly observed living arrangement whereby a male and female share territory and engage in behaviour indicative of a social pair, but does not imply any particular sexual fidelity or reproductive pattern. The extent to which social monogamy is observed in animals varies across taxa, with over 90 percent of avian species being socially monogamous, compared to only 3 percent of mammalian species and up to 15 percent of primate species. Social monogamy has also been observed in reptiles, fish, and insects.Sexual monogamy is defined as an exclusive sexual relationship between a female and a male based on observations of sexual interactions. However, scientific analyses can test for paternity, for example by or by powder tracing of females to track physical contact.

This type of analysis can uncover reproductively successful sexual pairings or physical contact. Genetic monogamy refers to DNA analyses confirming that a female-male pair reproduce exclusively with each other.The incidence of sexual monogamy appears quite rare in other parts of the animal kingdom. It is becoming clear that even animals that are overtly socially monogamous engage in. For example, while over 90% of birds are socially monogamous, 'on average, 30 percent or more of the baby birds in any nest are sired by someone other than the resident male.'

Patricia Adair Gowaty has estimated that, out of 180 different species of socially monogamous songbirds, only 10% are sexually monogamous. Offspring are far more successful when both the male and the female members of the social pair contribute food resources.An example of this was seen when scientists studied red winged blackbirds. These birds are known for remaining in monogamous relationships during the course of mating season. During the course of the study, the researchers gave a few select males vasectomies just before mating season.

The male birds behaved like they do every season, establishing territory, finding a mate, and attempting to make baby birds. Despite apparent social monogamy, the female birds whose partners were surgically altered still became pregnant, indicating that overt social monogamy did not predict for sexual fidelity. These babies were cared for by their sterile adoptive fathers.The highest known frequency of reproductively successful extra-pair copulations are found among fairywrensand where more than 65 percent of chicks are fathered by males outside the supposed breeding pair. This discordantly low level of genetic monogamy has been a surprise to biologists and zoologists, as social monogamy can no longer be assumed to determine how genes are distributed in a species., also widely known as neon gobies, also exhibit social monogamy. Hetereosexual pairs of fish belonging to the genus Elacatinus remain closely associated during both reproductive and non-reproductive periods, and often reside in same cleaning station to serve client fish. Fish of this genus frequently mate with a new partner after they are widowed.Evolution in animals.

See also:Socially monogamous species are scattered throughout the animal kingdom: A few insects, a few fish, about nine-tenths of birds, and a few mammals are socially monogamous. There is even a parasitic worm, that in its female-male pairings in the human body is monogamous. The diversity of species with social monogamy suggests that it is not inherited from a common ancestor but instead evolved independently in many different species.The low occurrence of social monogamy in has been claimed to be related to the presence or absence of estrus—or oestrus—the duration of sexual receptivity of a female.

This, however, doesn't explain why estrus females generally mate with any proximate male nor any correlation between sexual and social monogamy. Birds, which are notable for a high incidence of social monogamy, do not have estrus.Researchers have observed a mixed mating system of monogamy and polygyny in the. Psychology. This section does not any. Unsourced material may be challenged and.Find sources: – ( October 2019) The North American microtine rodent's (vole) complex social structure and social behavior has provided unique opportunities to study the underlying neural bases for monogamy and social attachment. Data from studies using the Microtis ochrogaster or prairie vole indicate that the neuroendocrine hormones, oxytocin (in female prairie voles) and vasopressin (in male prairie voles) play a central role in the development of affiliative connections during mating. The effects of intracerebroventricular administration of oxytocin and vasopressin have been shown to promote affiliative behavior in the prairie vole but not in similar, but non-monogamous montane voles.

This difference in neuropeptide effect is attributed to the location, density, and distribution of OT and AVP receptors. Only in the prairie voles are OT and AVP receptors located along the mesolimbic dopamine reward pathway, presumably conditioning the voles to their mates odor while consolidating the social memory of the mating episode.

This finding highlights the role of genetic evolution in altering the neuroanatomical distribution of receptors, resulting in certain neural circuits becoming sensitive to changes in neuropeptides.See also. 'Marriage - 1.

Polygamy and monogamy'. Ancient Israel. Its Life and Institutions. London: Darton, Longman & Todd. Pp. 24–26.

John Paul II (2006). Man and Woman He created Them. A Theology of the Body 1,2-4. Waldstein (trans.). Boston: Paoline Books & Media. Pp. 132–133. 'Marriage'.

Encyclopaedia Judaica. Jerusalem-New York: Encyclopaedia Judaica Jerusalem — The MacMillan Company. Pp. 1026–1051.

'Monogamy'. Encyclopaedia Judaica. Jerusalem-New York: Encyclopaedia Judaica Jerusalem — The MacMillan Company.

Pp. 258–260. Pinch Geraldine, Private Life in Ancient Egypt in: J. Rubinson (assist.), eds.

Civilizations of the Ancient Near East. New York: Simon & Schuster Macmillan. Pp. 363–381.

Stol Marten: Private Life in Ancient Mesopotamia, in: J. Rubinson (assist.), eds.

Civilizations of the Ancient Near East. New York: Simon & Schuster Macmillan. Pp. 486–501. (1981).

San Francisco: Ignatius Press. Pp.Further reading.

Barash, David P., and Lipton, Judith Eve. The Myth of Monogamy: Fidelity and Infidelity in Animals and People.

Freeman and Co./Henry Hold and Co., 2001. Kleiman DG (March 1977).

'Monogamy in mammals'. 52 (1): 39–69.

Lehrman, Sally. July 22, 2002. Accessed 21 July 2008. On studies showing social and genetic benefits of promiscuity.; et al. 'Enhanced Partner Preference in a Promiscuous Species by Manipulating the Expression of a Single Gene'. 429 (6993): 754–7.

Reichard, Ulrich H., and Christophe Boesch (eds.). Monogamy: Mating Strategies and Partnerships in Birds, Humans and Other Mammals. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003.,. (2000). Cambridge, MA: Cambridge, MA: Perseus Pub. Lathrop GM, Huntsman JW, Hooper AB, Ward RH (1983).

'Evaluating pedigree data. Identifying the cause of error in families with inconsistencies'. 33 (6): 377–89. Roth, Martha T., 'Comparative Studies in Society and History' 29 (1987), and Babylonian Marriage Agreements 7th–3rd Centuries BC (1989). Gabbatiss, Josh. (February 2016),External links Look up in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.Wikiquote has quotations related to:.

Marriage has changed a lot over the history of humankind. The earliest societies tended to be polygamous, then there was a switch to monogamy. We did not stop there, however. Currently, most societies practice serial monogamy. That is, monogamy with divorce and remarriage.How can these transitions between marriage regimes be explained? Why did humanity start out as polygamous, and what prompted us to switch to monogamy, and then later on to serial monogamy? Answering such questions elegantly requires a unified theory of marriage, which is what this post is about.Such a theory of marriage was developed by in an amazing paper published in the Review of Economic Studies.In an I talked about various theories as to why monogamy is more widespread today than polygamy.

Indeed all those theories imply that sometime over the course of history most human societies switched to monogamy. But there is no single theoretical framework that encompasses that switch and the distinction between monogamy and serial monogamy at the same time. This is where de la Croix and Mariani’s paper comes in.Let us start with a little history. It is largely accepted that most ancient societies were polygamous.

This does not necessarily mean a widely practiced polygamy, but more like a tolerated one. In fact, it was only the rich who could generally (afford to) be polygamous. And more precisely, polygamy per se (which can involve mutliple wives and/or husbands) was not the most widespread institution, instead it was polygyny (one male having multiple wives), which is a subset of polygamy.After some time, however, strict monogamy was introduced and polygyny banned. This largely coincides with the spread of Christianity, at least in Europe. Finally, serial monogamy appeared with the rise of divorce laws. This is obviously a more modern phenomenon.Below is a great figure from the paper (click to enlarge), which summarizes the history of marriage institutions.

Disadvantages Of Monogamy

The left column shows important dates regarding the transition from polygamy (P) to monogamy (M). The horizontal line is when the authors say the switch – roughly speaking – happened.

The right column contains similar information for the switch from monogamy to serial monogamy (S).Now let’s discuss the authors’ theory. The idea is as follows. Society comprises of four groups: rich females, rich males, poor females, poor males. Each of these groups have a preference ordering of the three possible marriage regimes: polygamy (P), monogamy (M) and serial monogamy (S). Their preference ordering may depend on the state of the economy (such as the fraction of people who are rich, etc.).

Advantages And Disadvantages Of Serial Monogamy Meaning

In other words, the preferences of a group may change over time as the economy changes.These group-level preferences are then aggregated into a society-level preference, as if people were voting in an election on which regime to implement. Of course, this is not to be interpreted as a literal vote.

Clearly, nobody but rich males had actual political power for most of human history. But still, preferences of other groups were taken into account (albeit possibly with a lower weight) in order to prevent dissatisfaction with the ruling elites for one.First, we’ll look at the preferences by group. Throughout this discussion, please refer to the figure below. To interpret it, note that the horizontal axis ( mu) refers to the fraction of males that are rich; the vertical axis ( phi) to the fraction of females that are rich.

We’re only concerned with the part below the 45-degree line, because it is assumed throughout the analysis that the fraction of rich males is larger than the fraction of rich females ( mu phi). This also means that we restrict our attention to polygyny (one husband, multiple wives).Rich females, as can be seen in the leftmost panel of the figure above, always prefer serial monogamy. This result requires that the probability of a marriage going bad be high enough. Furthermore, their least preferred alternative (weakly so) is polygamy. This is because in the model, it is assumed that polygamy is always polygyny. And that the wives are so to speak somewhat jealous of each other, which has a negative effect on their utility. Rich females are indifferent between monogamy and polygamy when the fraction of rich males is high enough though, as can be seen above.

But at this point, polygamy will never be practiced (as it isn’t even the preferred alternative of rich males).Rich males always prefer polygamy to monogamy. This is because the former institution allows them to take advantage of their wealth on the marriage market more. Serial monogamy, however, is preferred to polygamy if the fraction of males that are rich is high. This is because, in this case, there are just simply too many rich males, so polygamy carries with it a higher risk of staying single. Serial monogamy can in this case be a better alternative, as it allows one to remarry if a marriage turns bad.Poor females prefer polygamy to monogamy as long as there aren’t too many rich males. In this case, poor females clearly have a higher chance of marrying a rich man with polygamy.

And they prefer being the second wife of a rich man to being the first of a poor. As the number of rich men increases, poor females prefer monogamy. The reason is that now they will have a decent chance of being the only wife of a rich man. But given that the number of rich men is not too high yet, in case they were to divorce, they would have too low of a chance to remarry rich as well.

So they don’t like serial monogamy yet. They only prefer serial monogamy if the number of rich men increases even further.Finally, poor males always prefer monogamy. They don’t like polygamy, because – for poor males – it carries with it a risk of being single. This is because rich males will marry polygamously first, and thus with equal sex ratios some poor men will bound to remain single.

As for their second preferred alternative, this group prefers polygamy to serial monogamy only if the number of rich men is low enough so that the chance of staying single with polygamy is low.Now let us look at how these group preferences are aggregated to create what the authors call a political equilibrium. Assume that there is majority voting, but that different groups can have different voting weights.If we keep the fraction of rich males/females exogenous we can already see that the model can reproduce what we saw in history. With an initially low number of rich males, polygamy will be the prevailing institution. As the number of rich males increases, monogamy will prevail because of the preferences of poor females. Finally, as the number of rich people (both males and females) grows even further, serial monogamy becomes the constitution.The authors go further though, and introduce some dynamics into the model. Suppose the share of rich men and women evolves endogenously (i.e. Within the framework of the model).

The probability of a child becoming rich depends on parental resources and wealth.In particular, children of polygamous households have a lower chance of being rich (as consistent with empirical evidence). Furthermore, divorce also has a cost which drains the family’s resources and thus reduces the probability of becoming rich.The dynamics of this model are summarized in the figure below. The triangle is colored according to the prevailing aggregated (society-level) preferences: light gray is the region of polygamy, gray is monogamy and dark gray is serial monogamy.In the left panel, the arrows indicate where society is moving from a given point on the graph. We can see that in polygamy (light gray), the number of rich males is increasing (we’re moving right). This is because rich males have relatively more children (they’re polygamous after all) than poor males. Then as the number of rich males is increasing, we’re bound to enter the region of monogamy. In that case, both the number of rich males and females is increasing.

This is because monogamy increases female social mobility because as opposed to polygamy, resources don’t have to be divided amongst so many children. So daughters have a higher chance of becoming rich now.Since both males and females are getting richer, we’re going northeast on the graph. Then we hit the region of serial monogamy. This region slows social mobility down (because divorce costs drain family resources). And thus we converge to a steady state.A simulated version of these dynamics can be seen in the right panel of the above figure. We start off from the southwest corner of the plot, and as the black dots show the dynamics take us through monogamy country all the way to our destination in the serial monogamy steady state.There are various other things considered in the paper (which is well worth a read).

For instance, the authors look at progressive enfranchisement: what if poor males and females are initially powerless, and then they gradually gain political power. They also look at what happens if they endogenize the transfer of resources within the household in a Beckerian way. In general, the dynamics presented above are relatively robust.

Advantages And Disadvantages Of Solar Energy

They can arise in a variety of situations.Thus this paper tells us that polygamy could have initially been the prevailing institution because there wasn’t much opposition to it from poor males and females when the share of rich males was low. Then as there were more and more rich males (for instance with the in Western Europe), certain groups started preferring monogamy (e.g. Poor females) and some institutions (e.g. Christianity) catered to these preferences. Even later (around the late 19th century), with even more rich males and females, several groups started preferring serial monogamy, bringing about a transition to that regime.One potential concern that is not really addressed in the paper is whether this theory is universal enough to apply outside of Europe and the Western world in general. The evolution of marriage institutions presented above and explained by the paper may be very Europe-specific.

Unfortunately, I don’t have the necessary historical knowledge to tell if this is the case. But if other regions showed similar patterns in marriage, that would be very encouraging for this theory. Even if not, it is still a great framework that explains at the very least the development of marriage institutions in the Western world.