Polygamy key to long life
New research suggests men from polygamous cultures outlive those from monogamous ones by 12 percent on average, according to a report from New Scientist.
Ecologist Virpi Lummaa from the University of Sheffield, UK, studied men aged 60+ from 189 countries on a monogamy scale of one to four – from totally monogamous to mostly polygamous for her research, presented to the International Society for Behavioral Ecology’s annual meeting in New York.
Lummaa and colleague Andy Russell also removed a country’s gross domestic product and average income to try and weed out the effects of better diet and healthcare from monogamous Western states.
Lummaa took pains to emphasise that their monogamy score is “a crude first stab”, and said they are trying to find different ways to assess marriage patterns – so their conclusions may change with further analysis.
It’s possible men who father children in the 60’s and 70’s take better care of themselves because of their dependents, conversely evolutionary forces may select for longer-lived men in polygamous cultures, according to the report.
Chris Wilson, an evolutionary anthropologist from Cornell University in New York who attended the talk said to New Scientist, "It's a valid hypothesis and good prediction."
He added that enjoying the loving attention of several wives who depend on their aging husband’s position in a social hierarchy may be the best explanation.
"It doesn't surprise me that men in those societies live longer than men in monogamous societies, where they become widowed and have nobody to care for them."
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Comments
POLYGAMY KEY TO LONG LIFE FOR MEN
I've no doubt that if a man has 3 or 4 "wives" babying him for years on end, yes, he will live longer. But would a REAL MAN want to end up as a 90-year-old baby? I notice the longevity of the women isn't mentioned. But then, I guess they're not important. After all, they're only concubines in some man's harem, aren't they? Poor things, I expect they all die off early of total boredom
polygamy and long life
traditional African marriage supports polygamy . A man and his wives who accepts this kind of marriage enjoy a life full of energy and challenges. The most common reason being for procreation then strength in numbers. A lot of african values that are supposed to be improved upon by our association with the whiteman were being discarded and are now being re-introduced to us as discoveries.
So is polyandry equally good for women?
If polygamy is good for men, why wouldn't polyandry be equally good for women? My biggest problem with those cultures that allow and even promote polygamy for men is that they do not extend the same right to women, making of women second class citizens, no more than chattels. It's like having two kids in a candy store. You tell the boy he can have up to four pieces of candy, but you tell the girl she can have only one and may have to share it with three other girls. WTF?
So two questions: Does this only apply to polygamy (as in, actual marriage), as opposed to polyamoury, and does it apply to women as well?
Polyandry
I don't think that's the real issue is it? Since it is up to the adults. I have a situation where my wife is open to it - she likes women. We both feel comfortable with this arrangement and it isn't simply a matter of sex. Since we are the consenting adults here it's up to us - not society. A society that by in large doesn't agree with it anyway. I don't have a problem with others having it the other way. It is personally not for me.
What went wrong with western
What went wrong with western civilization that has resulted in the near complete breakdown of the family unit? Some lunatic came up with the notion that men are the same as women, that they are interchangable. Polygamy is not for the benefit of men, it is for the benefit of women. If my mother had the benefit of sister wives when she was married to my alcoholic father she might have had someone to stand beside her and help her through it. Better still in a polygamist society she would have had more options in choosing a husband, someone with a track record even. Men and women are called by different names because they are different, they have different rolls.
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