Market forces affect patterns of polygyny in Uganda
- aDepartment of Social and Organizational Psychology, University of Groningen, 9712 TS, Groningen, The Netherlands; and
- bCentre for Behaviour and Evolution, Newcastle University, Newcastle NE1 7RU, United Kingdom
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Edited by Eric A. Smith, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, and accepted by the Editorial Board December 30, 2008 (received for review October 6, 2008)
Abstract
Polygynous marriage is generally more beneficial for men than it is for women, although women may choose to marry an already-married man if he is the best alternative available. We use the theory of biological markets to predict that the likelihood of a man marrying polygynously will be a function of the level of resources that he has, the local sex ratio, and the resources that other men in the local population have. Using records of more than 1 million men in 56 districts from the 2002 Ugandan census, we show that polygynously married men are more likely to own land than monogamously married men, that polygynous marriages become more common as the district sex ratio becomes more female biased, that owning land is particularly important when men are abundant in the district, and that a man's owning land most increases the odds of polygyny in districts where few other men own land. Results are discussed with reference to models of the evolution of polygyny.
Footnotes
- 1To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: t.v.pollet{at}rug.nl
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Author contributions: T.V.P. and D.N. designed research; T.V.P. and D.N. performed research; T.V.P. analyzed data; and T.V.P. and D.N. wrote the paper.
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The authors declare no conflict of interest.
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This article is a PNAS Direct Submission. E.A.S. is a guest editor invited by the Editorial Board.
- © 2009 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA
