Title: More than one wife Post by: AfriKan Woman on November 20, 2007, 09:46:49 PM Hotep; I am new to the site but after perusing a few subjects i decided to ask you for your thoughts about a man having more than one wife..in other words polygamy. Please be honest and say how you feel. In exchange i will share a few things that just may change your opinion pro/con Title: Re: More than one wife Post by: nubianqueenx on November 28, 2007, 06:54:27 AM i think it is wrong and selfish because women arent allowed to do the same, even if woman outnumber men i think its wrong
Title: Re: More than one wife Post by: wezekana on December 11, 2007, 07:12:47 PM I think the gist of the issue is centered around reproductive necessity primarily, and on self-interest and interpersonal choice issues (mostly control and uncontrolled sexual urges) secondarily... and that on both sides, male and female.
Not too many men in the ‘modern’ world have the cultural or psychological maturity needed to effectively tend to the African style extended family, nor do blacks in the west have the same mass cultural backing for these relationships that was once present in their society and which enabled them then to effectively surmount issues within these family structures. The same can be said of a lot of women. What was once strategic family planning and selflessness in regards to lineal survivability has become a perverse dance between sets of emotionally enslaved combatants, each participant wrestling with the other in an attempt to coerce, on the one hand, and to resist domination on the other. Who wants to be held by an enslaver? Or share their affections with an infidel? In most westernized arenas the act of polygamy has an added connotation of sexual predation, being that sex there is not used primarily for procreation or increased bonding in a relationship but instead for gratification and oft times demoralization. Irregardless of this, or of the true motives of the participants, the pronounced and enacted global economic conditions of today seem to be seeking to restrain, limit and vilify polygamous relationships. Incidentally, those agencies which attempt such directive may knowingly be major contributors to polygamy’s inability to take place effectively or in the numbers sufficient to produce a positive societal effect... which would be increased numbers of select individuals… and with the current genocidal tactics being inflicted upon black men and women, coupled with the fact the monogamous African relations are under the same kinds of attacks, I wonder about the logicality of the decision against polygamy by Africans. Polygamous males must consider the ramifications of how the acquisition of multiple wives might affect the women entrusted into their care (especially psychologically), and must also consider the degree to which they themselves will be able to accept and maintain their own responsibilities in these areas before entering into any relationship of this type. If she has expressed her disapproval for circumstances such as these, never test her or push her on it. Every decision in a cooperative relationship must be mutual and all decisions made mutually must be respected… or you’ll lose her. Even if she stays you’ll lose her. Also, black womb-man is quite dangerous when scorned. She might kill ya’. Truth and respect is the best policy. If she says no and you choose to stay with her do not violate her trust. A woman who finds herself confronted with these issues might consider the natural reproductive drive inherent in man, the reasons which might now necessitate enhanced black reproductive affairs, how much self-interest plays a part in their own relations with their partners and why, and whether or not they could truly participate in any arrangement of this kind. The decidedly monogamous woman would do best to steer clear of men who speak in terms of polygamy, as even a hint of this exposes a drive which is natural and easily controlled, yes, but not easily dismissed. It may simply be a latent biological functioning of that particular man. I should stress here that man can overcome his nature, sometimes with little or no effort and sometimes only with gargantuan strivings, but the facts concerning his nature will remain. He is what he is, but what he does defines him and the two never meet in between. Title: Re: More than one wife Post by: afrikanrebel06 on April 26, 2008, 09:51:22 PM polygamy is an afrikan social system, we have to see from wholistic point view,also my dear sister,polyandry,which allow women to have many husbands,not here,in north amerika though,we have to havea an afrikan world view and nota western world view,many of us,nowa days, view polygamy thru the western lenses stead of an afrikan world view,same goes for polyandry, an afrikan world view will help us to develop our view of the world and about the world as an afrikan,because we live in system of global white supremacy many of us and among us, end up developing the views of the masters, when they arrived in afrika, it was already in place, arabs have many wives the so called muslims are allowed to have many wives as they can,where did they get that from!? afrika!
we must learn to take the good and live the bad,polygamy existed for the survival of afrikan family structure and polyandry can also be practised, in my humble opinion, polyandry gives the women flexiblity she could choose her husbands, so study both of dem ;D Title: Re: More than one wife Post by: Alyse on June 08, 2008, 05:52:05 AM Very interesting paper providing empirical evidence along with substantial data to demonstrate pros and cons of both monogamy and polygyny. The introduction itself demonstrates key factors for both points of views, therefore it is up to the reader to concur with the given data and realize that equilibrium of both are determined on wider structures of social thinking. Source- http://hubcap.clemson.edu/~sauerr/seminar_papers/gould_monogamy.pdf The Mystery of Monogamy Eric D. Gould, Omer Moav, and Avi Simhon The Hebrew University August 20, 2003 Abstract This paper examines why developed countries are monogamous while rich men throughout history have tended to practice polygyny (multiple wives). Wealth inequality naturally produces multiple wives for rich men in a standard model of the marriage market. This paper argues that the sources of inequality, not just the level of inequality, determine the equilibrium degree of monogamy or polygyny. In particular, when inequality is determined more by disparities in human capital versus non-labor income (such as land, capital, corruption), the outcome is more monogamous. This explains why developed countries, where human capital is the main source of income and inequality, are monogamous while less-developed economies tend to be polygynous. The results are driven by the larger inequality in the value of women in the marriage market in modern economies. When the value of human capital increases, rich men increasingly value quality women who can help them raise quality children more efficiently. As a result, high quality women are valued much more than low quality women, which makes polygyny less affordable for rich men. In this manner, we show that male inequality generates polygyny, but female inequality reduces it. Using data from Cote d’Ivoire, we provide evidence for all the main implications of the model. In particular, we control for a man’s total income and show that polygyny increases with non-labor income but decreases with labor income and education. These patterns are strong even within social groups where norms regarding polygyny are likely to be constant. Introduction Throughout history, wealthy men have tended to mate with multiple wives. This practice, known as polygyny, exists in 850 of the 1170 societies recorded in Murdock’s Ethnographic Atlas (Hartung (1982)). Polygyny is still prevalent in much of Africa where the percent of women living in polygynous households ranges from 25% to 55% in the Western, Central, and Eastern parts (Lesthaege (1986)). Moreover, polygyny is very easy to explain theoretically — male inequality in wealth tends to generate inequality in the number of their wives (Becker (1991)). If all men were equal, there would be no reason for a woman to become the second wife of a man when she can just as easily be the only wife of someone just as good. However, it is not well understood why polygyny is virtually non-existent in modern industrialized societies, or in other words, why polygyny is so strongly associated with primitive economies both today and throughout history. Given the large and often staggering disparities in wealth in many highly developed countries, it is somewhat of a mystery that monogamy has emerged almost universally in the marriage market of advanced economies. Therefore, the primary goal of this paper is to offer an explanation for the emergence of monogamy as an equilibrium outcome even in the presence of persistently high levels of income inequality. Our model demonstrates that a key factor explaining the practice of monogamy versus polygyny is not just the level of inequality, but also the composition of inequality. In particular, income is derived from labor income, which is a function of human capital, and non-labor income such as land, physical capital, corruption, etc. The model shows that the marriage market equilibrium becomes more monogamous as the level of inequality is determined more by disparities in human capital versus disparities in non-labor income. This result is consistent with the idea that inequality in advanced economies is determined more by differences in human capital, while inequality in lessdeveloped societies is primarily due to a skewed distribution of non-labor income.1 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. Therefore, the rich men in less-developed 1For example, labor income explains 72% of the variation in total income for male heads of households in the United States 1990 Census versus only 54% in Cote d’Ivoire in 1986 (see the empirical section for a description of the Cote d’Ivoire data). Using log income and log wages, these numbers are 18% for the US and 6% for Cote d’Ivoire. Also, this notion is consistent with the empirical growth literature which shows that the negative effect of land inequality on growth is usually found to be stronger than income inequality. See Alesina and Rodrik (1994) and Deininger and Squire (1998). Economies, who typically have high non-labor income and low human capital, do not produce quality children efficiently. As a result, rich men in less-developed economies have a low demand for quality children, which translates into a low demand for quality in women, since quality in women is valued only for its advantage in producing quality children. Hence, the value of women in themarriage market is determined by the quantity, rather than the quality of children that women can produce. Assuming that all women produce a similar expected number of children, all women are close substitutes for each other in the marriage market in primitive economies, which keeps the price low enough so that rich men can afford more than one wife. Consequently, rich men in primitive economies marry multiple wives and have many children with low levels of human capital. In more advanced economies, human capital plays a larger role in determining the level of income and inequality. Therefore, the wealthy men are typically men of higher quality, not just thosewithmore non-labor income. As a result, wealthy men have a higher demand for child quality versus quantity because their cost of producing child quality is low relative to the return. The increased demand for quality children increases the demand for quality in women in the marriage market, since high quality men and women are complements in the production of quality children. Thus, women are valued according to both the quality and quantity of children they can produce, and therefore, high quality women are a scarce resource in the marriage market in advanced economies. As a result, women of different quality levels are not highly substitutable for each other, and the high value of quality women increases their price in the marriage market and makes polygyny less affordable for rich men who want high quality wives. Monogamy emerges in advance economies because of the increasing value of high quality women in the marriage market, which stems from the increasing value of their input in the production of child quality.2 In other words, male inequality generates polygyny, but female inequality reduces it. The model shows that inequality in the value of women is necessary to reduce the degree of polygynous mating — there needs to be a reason why rich men are willing to pay more for less quantity. The model also shows how female inequality is generated. The value of women in the marriage market is shown to be directly linked to the importance of her children’s human capital. Therefore, when human capital is a bigger factor in determining Theoretically, the switch towards quality versus quantity in advanced economies, as in Becker, Murphy and Tamura (1990), could increase the demand for polygyny if a rich man tries to increase quality by decreasing the number of children per wife, and therefore, may lead to an offsetting increase in the number of wives. This equilibrium does not occur in our model since the comparative advantage of quality women in producing quality children drives up the price of quality women to the point of making polygyny less affordable. Her child’s future income, women who can create high quality children more efficiently are increasingly valued in comparison to low quality women. This inequality within women directly influences the degree of polygynous matching in equilibrium. As a result, male inequality in less-developed societies translates into inequality in the number of wives per man, while inequality in developed countries generates inequality in the quality of wives. Becker (1991) calls inequality in the quality of wives “implicit polygyny,” which our model shows is the equilibrium outcome when the source of inequality stems mainly from human capital because of the inequality in the value of women in the marriage market. The model also offers an explanation of why and how the “power of women” is higher in advanced societies. The increasing “power of women” derives from the increasing value of their ability to produce quality children, and therefore, the model is consistent with the roughly equal division of household resources within modern, monogamous marriages. In addition, our analysis using data from Cote d’Ivoire confirms all the main implications of the model. In particular, we control for a man’s total income and show that polygyny increases with non-labor income but decreases with labor income and education. This result is consistent with the main prediction of our model: the sources of income, in addition to the level of income, strongly determine the degree of polygynous behavior in the marriage market. It may be tempting to argue that the mystery of monogamy is easily explained by bans on polygynous behavior in modern societies, or social norms in favor of monogamy. We do not dismiss these factors as inconsequential, however, they are unlikely to be the entire explanation for several reasons. First of all, bans on polygyny may seem to be effective in Western countries, but polygyny is also banned in many less-developed countries with persistently high rates of polygynous mating (Western Africa, Thailand, Egypt, etc.). Clearly, bans on polygyny do not guarantee monogamy, precisely because of the difficulty of enforcement — it is very hard to stop consenting adults from living together and having children. Secondly, if there are effective laws or norms against polygyny, how did they arise? If their existence is independent from economic considerations, then norms against polygyny should not be so strongly correlated with economic development, investments in child quality, assortative mating between high quality husbands and wives, and the increasing power of women within the household and in society. Furthermore, our analysis on Cote d’Ivoire shows that the different sources of income explain variation in the polygynous behavior of individuals within religion and area of residence, where social norms about polygyny are likely to be constant. Therefore, it seems more likely that norms and economic motives work together and reinforce each other. This line of reasoning follows Becker (1991) and Elster (1989), who argue that although laws and norms may affect behavior, they rarely evolve and are maintained if personal incentives are very weak to uphold them. Our model should be considered an attempt to explain how personal incentives align themselves with norms at various stages of development. In particular, our model shows how the demand for polygyny declines naturally in advanced countries, so that social norms can evolve and reinforce a monogamous outcome. As a result, our model can help explain why norms in favor of monogamy are strongly correlated with so many economic patterns listed above. In addition, our model can be used to show within a simple political economy context why monogamous norms and laws emerge in the first place. Becker (1991) points out that, in contrast to conventional wisdom, women are not the ones primarily harmed by polygyny, since polygyny offers additional options for women. The real victims of polygyny are poor men, who may face very dim marriage prospects if they have to compete with rich men in a polygynous market. Given that rich men usually exercise more political and social power than poor men, rich men will only create laws or norms allowing for polygyny when their benefit from polygyny is high relative to the potential costs of social unrest stemming from inequality in the marriage market. That is, in advanced countries, the political economy gains for rich men of giving the “benefit” of monogamy to poorer men outweighs the rather small cost of limiting themselves to only one wife, which our model predicts is already the equilibrium tendency. But, in poorer countries where the demand for polygyny by rich men is high according to our model, the cost of limiting themselves to one woman is very high, and therefore, the rich and powerful are likely to keep the privilege of polygyny for themselves and deal with the potential wrath of the lower classes in other ways. Considering the prevalence of polygyny throughout history and even today in many less-developed economies, there is surprisingly very little written about this issue.3 Most models about marriage behavior assume monogamous mating. Becker (1991) presents the classic model of the marriage market which does allow for multiple partners, and It is somewhat debatable whether there is no polygyny in modern societies like the United States. Even if we disregard certain Mormon groups which are explicitly polygynous, many men are “serial monogamists” in the sense of marrying multiple wives in succession. This could be considered a form of polygyny, and points to the overall difficulty in categorizing various societies over time as either polygynous or monogamous. The very definition of marriage is not comparable in all places and over time. For example, concubines in China had certain privileges which were similar to wives, and the concept of marriage in Africa today is not the same as in Western societies. However, despite all this variation, our model seeks to explain the seemingly ubiquitous decline in polygyny in modern societies, using the working definition of a “wife” as someone a man lives with and raises children with. Title: Re: More than one wife Post by: NigistNegest on March 15, 2009, 09:07:24 PM Blessed love to one and all.
Yes ppl,from an afrocentric point of view ,the only that matters to me right now, as far concerning DIVINE MARRIAGE . It is a state of a common purpose involving a handfull of racional & conscious grupe of ppl,who are passionant & devoted commited to share the same view and faith regarding The relatioship of MAN&WOMAN in all levels ,it needs responsabilitie,no folly its a serious thing its not a joke Its about exercising love with respect for the individuals, about loving one another withouth restriction ,without bondage. Respecting and keeping the law of jah inspired by the most high ,witch is of loving one another in a brotherly and sistren love,its about prefering one another,by doing that we have a strong organization a fit foundation ready to protect a common goal. Its UNITY Its a gift an organic manifestation of love IT ABOUT FALLING IN LOVE WITH THE MOST HIGH OF ALL CREATION WHO LIVETH IN THE HEART AND FLESH OF ALL MAN Its an agreement its never forced on ppl POLYGAMI on the other end, is forced on ppl just like the name polygami is forced on the masses to demonize this walk of life,this path of life OK" what some muslims do is polygami, But in afrocentric is called DIVINE MARRIAGE its an adventure witch every human being has the right to choose freely what they want for themselves,its a CALL FOR SOME PPL. Who are determed and faithfull to one truth self, its about unfolding LOVE in all its meaning of it. A solid and living prove that jelouse is not the nature of black ppl period & love do conquer evil. thank you. Title: Re: More than one wife Post by: Makini on March 16, 2009, 09:04:12 PM Alyse...wrt to your post, huh? I went from thinking to stay in this forum for a few more hours to thinking, what am I doing online while reading your post? Just me talking out loud. That serious serious send me inna trance, I feel like I drank some alco when I see 'of' 5 times one after the other in the second paraegraph. Can I be so daffed as to ask what you get from the link, not that I too lazy to read, I figure you read it and de vibes you draw from it my make an interesting read and could generate some courage/be a good axis for a second go at it. Peace sistren.
I absolutely despise the comment Africanrebel06 made 'we must learn to take the good with the bad', just because I done wrestle that theme for de week already - yea, I know is only Monday! I think people fall down too often with this. Often people are not strong enough to let go of relationships because of this and get trapped in all sorts of situations, spirals. I think very few people are ready for monogamous relationships when they get into them and invariably they get into them for the wrong reasons, without considering 'the bad', and if its not complicated enough as it is, you toss polygamy into the mix. Who can start to discuss polygamy from a clear perspective without biases and agendas? But we are people and these things will always factor in somehow, somewhere... Wezekana - I was taking in your discussion. Cultural and physcological maturity, agreed, agreed... Title: Re: More than one wife Post by: SimeonLevi on May 16, 2009, 07:38:53 AM Any 'marriage' is positively constructive or no
Numbers game or legitimation irrelevant |