# Polygamy: how does the math work? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 17, 2007, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy-how-does-the-math-work/392656 "2007-02-17T22:36:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2007, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy-how-does-the-math-work/392656/1 "2007-02-17T22:36:18Z")
I’m not interested in a debate over the merits or demerits of polygamy. I just have a (very naive, I’m sure) question. If a man takes multiple wives, and the human race is roughly split 50/50 by sex, how does that work out? Won’t there necessarily be a lot of bachelors? ---
**Author:** ![Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2007, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy-how-does-the-math-work/392656/2 "2007-02-17T22:51:43Z")
Yes, there are surplus men in such a situation. Read up on the [Lost Boys.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Boys_of_Polygamy) ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2007, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy-how-does-the-math-work/392656/3 "2007-02-17T23:22:44Z")
I can’t get your link to open just now, but I Googled the text of your link (Lost Boys of Polygamy) and there’s a whole lot of baggage on the topic that didn’t interest me for this purpose. I’m just glad to know that I wasn’t missing something obvious. Thanks for the response. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2007, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy-how-does-the-math-work/392656/4 "2007-02-17T23:26:04Z")
What tends to happen is older men marry younger women (or even teenage girls) and then father multiple children with them. A single man, if he waits long enough, will eventually be able to secure a bride even if she’s a generation (or two) younger than he. The community’s population keeps growing and the whole thing becomes a sort of pyramid scheme, with the inevitable crash. There will be a surplus of single men, but also of widowed women (typical if a 60 year-old man marring a 14 year-old girl becomes the norm), and if they pair up (a community that encourages polygamy might be inclined to discourage this for cultural/religious reasons) the surplus male population could be reduced. ---
**Author:** ![mks57](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9bd4f/32.png) [@mks57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mks57)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2007, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy-how-does-the-math-work/392656/5 "2007-02-17T23:52:18Z")
Bachelors are expendable. That is how it works for many social mammals. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2007, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy-how-does-the-math-work/392656/6 "2007-02-18T02:16:28Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal] I’m not interested in a debate over the merits or demerits of polygamy. I just have a (very naive, I’m sure) question. If a man takes multiple wives, and the human race is roughly split 50/50 by sex, how does that work out? Won’t there necessarily be a lot of bachelors? [/QUOTE] Not if there are an equal number of women acquiring multiple husbands in similar quantities. ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2007, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy-how-does-the-math-work/392656/7 "2007-02-18T02:22:47Z")
[QUOTE=AHunter3] Not if there are an equal number of women acquiring multiple husbands in similar quantities. [/QUOTE] True, but it sounds like he was assuming polygyny rather than true polygamy. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2007, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy-how-does-the-math-work/392656/8 "2007-02-18T02:29:34Z")
[QUOTE=mks57] Bachelors are expendable. That is how it works for many social mammals. [/QUOTE] True women have seldom been forced to fight in wars and in many societies marriage/fatherhood lessed a man’s military liability. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2007, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy-how-does-the-math-work/392656/9 "2007-02-18T03:15:48Z")
There have also been societies where only the elite had multiple wives, and most of the population followed the standard one-to-a-customer system. If one man in a hundred has two wives, and one man in a thousand has five, that’s not going to have much impact on the society as a whole. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2007, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy-how-does-the-math-work/392656/10 "2007-02-18T03:56:58Z")
[QUOTE=mks57] Bachelors are expendable. [/QUOTE] Isn’t that why we invented war? ---
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2007, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy-how-does-the-math-work/392656/11 "2007-02-18T04:38:50Z")
[QUOTE=Fear Itself] Isn’t that why we invented war? [/QUOTE] No, it’s more _how_ we invented war. Tris ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2007, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy-how-does-the-math-work/392656/12 "2007-02-18T04:59:06Z")
[QUOTE=AHunter3] Not if there are an equal number of women acquiring multiple husbands in similar quantities. [/QUOTE] I doubt if there is a single example of a human culture in which this occurs. There are a few which permit polyandry, but even in those I don’t think it’s very common. Polygamy pretty much means polygyny in most human cultures. [QUOTE=Chronos] There have also been societies where only the elite had multiple wives, and most of the population followed the standard one-to-a-customer system. If one man in a hundred has two wives, and one man in a thousand has five, that’s not going to have much impact on the society as a whole. [/QUOTE] I think this is the general case. In most polygamous societies, only the fairly well-to-do can afford to have more than one wife. And older men may be able to afford to take additional younger wives as their earning power increases with age. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2007, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy-how-does-the-math-work/392656/13 "2007-02-18T05:35:44Z")
[QUOTE=Colibri] I doubt if there is a single example of a human culture in which this occurs. There are a few which permit polyandry, but even in those I don’t think it’s very common. Polygamy pretty much means polygyny in most human cultures. [/QUOTE] Ah, but as **Bryan Ekers** points out, men often marry much younger women, who then become widows who frequently remarry. So just for example, you could have a society where men takes two wives on average, and women are married twice on average (serially, not simultaneously), and the math will work out just fine. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2007, 9:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy-how-does-the-math-work/392656/14 "2007-02-18T09:58:05Z")
[QUOTE=Colibri] I doubt if there is a single example of a human culture in which this occurs. [/QUOTE] Didn’t the Discovery Channel kind of cover this to death in their documentary _The Marrying Tribe_? The culture they covered (Zoe Tribe?) permitted women to have multiple husbands and men to have multiple wives. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2007, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy-how-does-the-math-work/392656/15 "2007-02-18T15:31:06Z")
[QUOTE=Monty] Didn’t the Discovery Channel kind of cover this to death in their documentary _The Marrying Tribe_? The culture they covered (Zoe Tribe?) permitted women to have multiple husbands and men to have multiple wives. [/QUOTE] Do women have multiple husbands with the same frequency as men have multiple wives (which was the situation **AHunter3** proposed)? The little I could find on Google indicates the practice is poorly understood. In any case, even if a few small tribes practice it, this social system is vanishingly rare compared to those cultures that practice polygyny (which outnumber those that practice monogamy, especially if one includes those that practice “informal” polygyny through having concubines or mistresses in addition to having an official wife). [QUOTE=Gorsnak] Ah, but as Bryan Ekers points out, men often marry much younger women, who then become widows who frequently remarry. So just for example, you could have a society where men takes two wives on average, and women are married twice on average (serially, not simultaneously), and the math will work out just fine. [/QUOTE] Even if the math does work out, as per the OP there would still be an oversupply of bachelors, since a greater proportion of men would spend more of their lives unmarried than women. Women would generally marry young, while many men would have to wait until they were older to marry another man’s widow. If remarriage of widows were frequent, women would on average spend most of their lives married; many men would spend many years of adulthood as bachelors. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2007, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy-how-does-the-math-work/392656/16 "2007-02-19T00:01:24Z")
Now that the question is answered, I have a follow-up question, which may be more speculative. It seems to me that such a system would work very well for an expansionist empire: if the local girls are all married to the elite, then the local guys might have to look to conquered neighboring socieities to find mates, first killing off their male neighbors and then setting up shop (and expanding the empire’s borders) on their neighbor’s land. Has this ever been the case? Have empires deliberately or inadvertantly set up something like this? Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2007, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy-how-does-the-math-work/392656/17 "2007-02-19T04:46:52Z")
Just the other day, I watched one of my LDS comedy DVDs, done by some dude named Biscuit. His take on the polygamy: > [@](#): > > What’s with Mormons and multi-level marketing? Well, if you think about it, polygamy is the original MLM plan. You have 6 people at the top level, 48 at the next, and 200 at the next level! Obviously, the math doesn’t work there either. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2007, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy-how-does-the-math-work/392656/18 "2007-02-19T05:25:48Z")
[QUOTE=Left Hand of Dorkness] Now that the question is answered, I have a follow-up question, which may be more speculative. It seems to me that such a system would work very well for an expansionist empire: if the local girls are all married to the elite, then the local guys might have to look to conquered neighboring socieities to find mates, first killing off their male neighbors and then setting up shop (and expanding the empire’s borders) on their neighbor’s land. [/QUOTE] Don’t know, but the Incas had polygamy among the elite, with concubines also given for bravery in battle. [http://www.dennisadamsseminars.com/machu-picchu/social.html](http://www.dennisadamsseminars.com/machu-picchu/social.html) The conquered apparently provided new supplies of wives. Caveat: The site I linked to is connected with, “…one of the most talked about spiritual and physical healers of our time…”: I suspect that his Peruvian learning is derived from secondary sources. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2007, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy-how-does-the-math-work/392656/19 "2007-02-19T17:26:41Z")
> [@](#): > > by **Left Hand of Dorkness** > Now that the question is answered, I have a follow-up question, which may be more speculative. It seems to me that such a system would work very well for an expansionist empire: if the local girls are all married to the elite, then the local guys might have to look to conquered neighboring socieities to find mates, first killing off their male neighbors and then setting up shop (and expanding the empire’s borders) on their neighbor’s land. If you include mistresses and slaves in your accounting, that’s a pretty good description of the Roman Empire. Also the Spanish conquistadors. Up until about the 19th Century, warfare usually consisted of wiping out your enemy’s adult males, and selling the women and children into slavery. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2007, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy-how-does-the-math-work/392656/20 "2007-02-19T17:32:29Z")
I just remembered a quotation from an old history textbook: > [@](#): > > by Gengis Khan > > Man’s highest joy is victory: > to conquer your enemies and pursue them, > to deprive them of their possessions, > to make their beloved weep, > to ride on their horses, > and to embrace their wives and daughters. I suspect that “embrace” is probably not a literal translation. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy-how-does-the-math-work/392656.md?page=2)