Polygyny and Violence against Women

ABSTRACTThis Essay examines the link between polygyny, or one man who is married to multiple woman, and the physical security of women and children, and political rights and civil liberties using a unique dataset of 171 countries drawn from the WomanStats Project. Controlling for the independent effects of gross domestic product and sex ratio, we find statistically significant relationships between polygyny and an entire downstream suite of negative consequences for men, women, children, and the nation-state, including the following outcomes: discrepancy between law and practice concerning women's equality, birth rate, rates of primary and secondary education for male and female children, difference between males and females in HIV infection, age of marriage, maternal mortality, life expectancy, sex trafficking, female genital mutilation, domestic violence, inequity in the treatment of males and females before the law, defense expenditures, and political rights and civil liberties. Elevated frequency of polygynous marriage thus tends to be associated with increases in behavioral constraints and physical costs experienced by women and children in particular but also exerts effects that redound poorly to the majority of poor men as well. Defenders of such practices often refer to the importance of religious freedom in defending their views in support of polygyny; however, our data clearly show that such practices impose tremendous personal harm on their victims. Data taken from virtually every country in the world clearly documents polygyny as a practice that constitutes a fundamental abuse of basic human rights and dignity.INTRODUCTIONAfter the events of September 11, 2001, academics, pundits, policymakers, and other members of the interested public wondered why "they" hated "us." And, indeed, whether derived from politics, economics, religion, or history, some degree of resentment towards the West and Western values is no doubt fuelled by struggles over land, resources, power, and preferred institutions for political and economic structures.1 If these were the only sources of enmity, the search for peace would be hard enough. But the problem is worsened by a fundamental clash of values specifically surrounding the appropriate role of women in society that emerges entirely independently of economic and political contests, although such issues often serve to fuel such conflicts. Because Western values often encourage a foundation of at least legal equality between the sexes, threats to the assumed sociopolitical dominance of men in areas that strongly espouse these traditions provoke systematic hostility and opposition. As a result, we suggest that the original question is the wrong one to pose. Rather than counterposing East against West, arguing about the clash of civilizations in the prototypical Huntington sense,2 the critical concern should actually revolve around the sources and consequences of violence by men toward women as the root of conflict both within and among nations. What are some of the origins of the violence that men direct toward women? Is it simply rooted in male sexual desire for women and the anger and frustration that may result when men hold women responsible for their own drives? Or do men seek to control women simply because they are physically and financially stronger and because they are able to get away with exerting power over those with fewer resources? Or does male violence emerge from a much broader array of social incentives and permissions? And what are the consequences of such violence, not only for women and children but also for the men who instigate it and for the societies that sanction it? These patterns of violence often begin in the home and serve as models for the assumed hierarchical relationships between the sexes as well as implicit endorsement for dominance, coercion, and violence as the proper form of conflict resolution in society more broadly.3We argue here that female financial and social independence are feared not merely because of their material effects but also because of the threat they pose to the cultural values, status, and personal power of many men, particularly in underdeveloped and developing regions of the world. …