Polygamy - what's the deal? Any anthropologists out there today?

Question

Polygamy - what's the deal? Any anthropologists out there today?

Answer 1

I think if you look at it from an evolutionary point of view it is not necessarily "evil." In our "advanced" society we view things like polygamy as being evil because we no longer need them from a survival standpoint and now need an excuse for why nobody should do them even though there are some areas of the world that might benefit from them. If you look at our early Homo sapian ancestors you would realize that they did things we no longer have to. If you are in the paleolithic/neolithic times and someone has a large piece of meat for instance and you are hungry; you pick up a large stone or piece of wood and kill him and take the piece of meat. We only consider that type of thing "evil" because we no longer have to do it. If you are an early human male looking for a mate and see a female you find attractive and feel she would make a good mate you would grab her and carry her back to your cave or primitive house and would probably force her to have s*x with you. That was the only way for them to survive. We just no longer need to do it. I am not saying that raping a woman is okay I am just saying that the females of that day probably would have considered that proof that the male was strong enough to produce healthy children. Also, the men of that day would not have been stupid enough to try and injure the women as they would not have wanted to risk losing potential offspring. As far as polygamy goes, if you are a man from that period you realize that the more females you mate with means the more offspring you produce making you an evolutionary sucess. Thus you would grab as many healthy females as possible and with childbirth fatalities of that day and women being unable to bear children after a certain point you would probably continue to grab wives over the length of your lifetime.

Answer 2

in primitive cultures the male death rate is many times the female so females need a male to protect them.

in modern societies it is often good to have a supportive wife sister

Answer 3

Polygamy can be defined as any "form of marriage in which a person [has] more than one spouse. Polygamy exists in three specific forms, including polygyny (one man having multiple wives), polyandry (one woman having multiple husbands), or group marriage (some combination of polygyny and polyandry). Historically, all three practices have been found, but polygyny is by far the most common.

Answer 4

Simply put, when making babies you need reasources to nurture them. If a male is strong enough to defend its reasources then, it has the ability to produce and raise more ofspring. Biologicaly and evolutionarily speaking woman want their ofspring to be strong and survive so they want to breed with strong inderviduals thus multiple women are drawn to stronger males (much like with Brad Pitt in modern times). As pregnancy lasts 9 months and then the child must be raised for numerous years before it is capable of defending its self the woman and child in primitave times would need to be defended from predators etc thus they stick around and form "relationships".

Answer 5

Polygamy is often associated with the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints. Not to be confused with the plain old Church of Latter Day Saints or Mormons. This group split from the mainstream Mormons years ago over the issue of polygamy.

Polygamy is founded on the idea that men needed to take care of women, and that a loving, more supportive family can come from more children and wives. Is is a common belief that a man should take at least three wives.

In a polygamist marriage the man is married to each of his wives and his wives to each other, they share their children and relatives.

Polygamy is outlawed but is still widely practiced in private areas in the South west of the US. Polygamy often comes with many problems. A long history of sexual abuse, and beatings follow, along with younger boys being kicked out so the older men can have more wives.

Right now a famous polygamist leader is on trial for arranging plural marriages with underage girls to older men. This man is warren Jeffs and he claims to be a prophet.

Answer 6

In Tibet the women can have more than 1 husband. In a country where resources are limited this makes sense as a woman can only be pregnant "one at a time" whereas.... well, I think you know what I mean.

Answer 7

Polygamy is just having more than one mate.  Our culture has decided that you should only have one mate, one partner who you love and have for you whole life, but having more than one mate is not necessarily a bad thing.  A monogamous relationship can have its downsides as well.  If you love someone but want a better sexual relationship, or visa-versa, then it could lead to divorce, and lots of pain, wheras if you could have someone for both.  It sounds sick by our cultural standards, but truly, a lot of our problems come from problems in the household because of stuff like this, and the divorce rate is extremely high.

Answer 8

polygamy  and anthropology what about it? they are 2 different subjects.  What i'ts your question anyway?  Please be more specific so that i can answer you.