The Red Queen_ Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature - Matt Ridley [91]
Both of these models could easily apply to mankind. He became monogamous because the advantage that a junior father could supply in feeding the family outweighed the disadvantage in not being mated to the chief. Or he became polygamous because of the discrepancies in wealth between males. ‘Which woman would not rather be John Kennedy’s third wife, than Bozo the Clown’s first?’ says one (female) evolutionist.17
There is some evidence that the polygamy threshold does apply to human beings. Among the Kipsigis of Kenya, rich men have more cattle and more wives. Each wife of a rich man is at least as well off as the single wife of a poor man, and she knows it. According to Monique Borgehoff Mulder of the University of California at Davis, who has studied the Kipsigis, polygamy is willingly chosen by the women. A Kipsigis woman is consulted by her father when her marriage is arranged, and she is only too aware that being the second wife of a man with plenty of cattle is a better fate than being the first wife of a poor man. There is companionship and a sharing of the burden between co-wives. The polygamy-threshold model holds for the Kipsigis fairly well.18
There are, however, two difficulties with this theory. The first is that it says nothing about the first wife’s views. There is little advantage to a first wife in sharing her husband and his wealth with others. Among the Mormons of Utah, it is well known that first wives resent the arrival of second wives. The Mormon church officially abandoned polygamy more than a century ago, but in recent years a few fundamentalists have resumed the practice and have even begun to campaign openly for its acceptance. In Big Water, Utah, the mayor, Alex Joseph, had nine wives and twenty children in 1991. Most of the wives were career women, who were happy with their lot, but they do not all see eye to eye. ‘The first wife does not like it when the second wife comes along,’ said the third of the Mrs Josephs, ‘and the second wife doesn’t care for the wife who came first. So you can get some fighting and bad feeling.’19
Supposing that first wives usually object to sharing their husbands, what can the husband do about it? He can force her to accept the arrangement, as presumably did many despots in times past. Or he can bribe her to accept it. The legitimacy that a first wife’s children usually have compared with those from a second wife is a bonus that must go some way to mollifying the former. In parts of Africa it is written into the law that a first wife inherits seventy per cent of the husband’s wealth.
Incidentally, the polygamy threshold leads me to ask the question: in whose interest is it that polygamy be outlawed in our society? We automatically assume it is in the interest of women. But consider. It would presumably be illegal, as it is now, for somebody to be forced to marry against their will, so second wives would be choosing their lot voluntarily. A woman who wants a career would surely find a ménage à trois more, not less, convenient: she would have two partners to help share the chores of child care. As a Mormon lawyer put it recently, there are ‘compelling social reasons’ that make polygamy ‘attractive to the modern career woman’.20 But think of the effect on men. If many women chose to be second wives of rich men, rather than first wives of poor men, there would a shortage of unmarried women and many men would be forced to remain unhappily celibate. Far from being laws to protect women, anti-polygamy statutes may really do more to protect men.21
Let us erect the four commandments of mating system theory. First, if females do better by choosing monogamous and faithful males, monogamy will result – unless, second, men can coerce them. Third, if females do no worse by choosing already-mated males, polygamy will result – unless, fourth, already-mated females can prevent their males mating again, in which case