Does Poly Want A Cracker?

FLASH!
Judge Orders Return Of Sect’s Children
By The Associated Press
Filed at 11:02 a.m. ET, 06/02/08

San Angelo, Texas (AP) — A judge on Monday ordered the return of more than 400 children taken from a polygamist group's ranch, following the state Supreme Court ruling that the state's seizure of the youngsters wasn't justified.

The order signed by Texas District Judge Barbara Walther allowed parents to begin picking up their children at 10 a.m. CDT.

In exchange for regaining custody, the parents are not being allowed to leave Texas without court permission and must participate in parenting classes. They were also ordered not to interfere with any child abuse investigation and to allow the children to undergo psychiatric or medical exams if required.

Copyright © 2008 Ben Sargent

The PR disaster in the Lone Star State plays on. The 400+ children seized by the Texas Child Protective Services (CPS) Division have been ordered back to the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Deep West Texas. The YFZ Ranch was established by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints (FLDS) as a haven in a heartless world for its believers in "The Principle" (of polygyny, i.e., multiple wives to a single husband). The guru (Warren Jeffs) of this offshoot of the LDS (Mormon) Church is now in the sneezer in Utah for 10 years to life (actually two consecutive prison terms of five years to life) for his conviction on two counts of being an accomplice to rape. The rape involved the "spiritual marriage" of a 14-year-old girl to a man who was her first cousin. Prophet Jeffs presided over the "spiritual marriage." Interestingly, the FLDS temple on the YFZ Ranch has a bedroom (a room with a bed in it) on an upper floor of the building. The explanation offered by the Ranch spokesman is that the "bedroom" was for worshippers who might need a "nap" during lengthy worship services. Gee, don't all churches provide accomodations for those who nap during worship services? Nonetheless, the children of the YFZ Ranch are in limbo in foster homes scattered around the second-largest state in the Union. Personally, I am Yearning For Resolution (of this mess). If this is a (fair & balanced) paradox, so be it.

¹[x The Scientific Fundamentalist]
The Paradox Of Polygamy I: Why Most Americans Are Polygamous
By Satoshi Kanazawa

Polygyny has been in the public eye and many Americans’ water-cooler conversations lately, from the success of the HBO series "Big Love" to the trial of the Mormon sect leader Warren Jeffs. Most Americans consider polygynous marriage to be exotic, unusual, bizarre, and even morally wrong, hence the attraction of "Big Love" or the titillation of the Jeffs’ trial. But polygyny is not that exotic; many — even most — Americans are already in polygynous marriages.

First, let’s get our terms straight. Polygyny is the scientific term for a marriage of one man to more than one woman. Polygamy refers to both polygyny and polyandry
— marriage of one woman to more than one man. Polygamy is often used synonymously with polygyny because there are very few polyandrous societies in the world.

Of course, simultaneous polygyny, of the kind depicted in Big Love and practiced by Jeffs, is illegal in all 50 states. However, many Americans (and others) practice serial polygyny, through a series of marriage, divorce, and remarriage. For all practical purposes, the consequences of serial polygyny are exactly the same as those of simultaneous polygyny.

When a man like Bill Henrickson — the fictional polygynist on "Big Love" — has three wives simultaneously, the mathematical consequence, given a roughly 50-50 sex ratio, is that he is depriving two other men of their reproductive opportunities. Two other men cannot have a wife and children because Henrickson has three wives. When Donald Trump has had three wives sequentially, he too deprived two other men of their reproductive opportunities, because by the time he divorced his previous wives, they were past their reproductive age. The strongest predictor of remarriage after divorce is sex; men typically remarry, women typically don’t. Neither Ivana Trump nor Marla Maples remarried after divorce from Trump (although Ivana was briefly married without children before Trump).

Extramarital affairs are another means of polygynous mating, and married men are more likely to engage in affairs than married women. When a monogamously married man has two unmarried mistresses or girlfriends, the consequence is essentially the same; he is depriving two other men of their mating opportunities. So any man who’s ever divorced and remarried, any woman who’s ever married a divorced man, any married man who’s ever had long-term affairs, or any woman who’s ever had affairs with married men, are all practicing polygyny at some level, with the same consequences as simultaneous polygyny of Henrickson and Jeffs.

Whether simultaneous or serial, polygyny is common because humans are naturally polygynous. Scientists agree that anthropological and archeological evidence shows conclusively that humans have been mildly polygynous throughout evolutionary history. (But remember the danger of the naturalistic fallacy — deriving moral implications from scientific facts. “Natural” means neither “good” nor “desirable.” Nor does it mean “inevitable.”) Humans are not as polygynous as gorillas, whose silverback males keep a harem of several females, but not strictly monogamous like gibbons, whose male and female mate for life.

In the next post, I’ll address the question of who benefits from polygynous society: men or women? The answer might surprise you.

[Satoshi Kanazawa is an evolutionary psychologist, Reader in Management at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Psychology at University College London, and in the Department of Psychology at Birkbeck College, University of London. He is the coauthor (with the late Alan S. Miller) of Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters (Perigee, 2007).

Satoshi Kanazawa's Psychology Today blog is "The Scientific Fundamentalist."]

²[The Scientific Fundamentalist]
The Paradox Of Polygamy II: Why Most Women Benefit From Polygamy And Most Men Benefit From Monogamy
By Satoshi Kanazawa

Contrary to popular belief, most women benefit from polygynous society, and most men benefit from monogamous society. This is because polygynous society allows some women to share a resourceful man of high status. George Bernard Shaw (who was one of the founders of the London School of Economics and Political Science where I teach) put it best, when he observed, “The maternal instinct leads a woman to prefer a tenth share in a first rate man to the exclusive possession of a third rate one.”

Or, as the comedian Bill Maher asked his panel on his TV show "Politically Incorrect" on January 7, 1998, “Would you rather be the second or third wife of Mel Gibson or the only wife of Willard Scott?”, to which one of the panelists, the conservative commentator and activist Susan Carpenter McMillan, responded, “If it comes to Mel Gibson, I wouldn’t care if I was one, two, or three.” Of course, this was back when Mel Gibson was highly desirable. Substitute Matt Damon for Mel Gibson. The cast of characters changes in a decade, but the principle remains the same.

In contrast, most men benefit from monogamous society. Given a 50-50 sex ratio, monogamous society virtually guarantees a wife for every man, even a third-rate one. Under polygyny, some third-rate men may not find a wife at all, or, even if they are lucky enough to find one, their wife will not be as desirable as the one they can secure for themselves under monogamy, because under polygyny more desirable women would have become the second, third, or tenth wife of more desirable men.

The exceptions to this rule are highly desirable women, who benefit from monogamous society, and highly desirable men, who benefit from polygynous society. A highly desirable woman can marry a highly desirable man under any circumstances, but under polygyny she’d have to share her desirable husband with other women, whereas under monogamy she can monopolize him. A highly desirable man can acquire multiple wives under polygyny, but must confine himself to only one wife (albeit a highly desirable one) under monogamy.

It’s the nature of the statistical (“bell curve”) distribution, however, that most people are not extreme on either side; for example, most people are not extremely tall or extremely short, but of more or less average height. Similarly, most men and women are neither extremely desirable nor extremely undesirable. So most men benefit under monogamy, and most women benefit under polygyny.

When men imagine what living in a polygynous society might be like, they imagine themselves married to several wives. What they don’t realize, however, is that, more than likely, they would be left without any wife in a polygynous society. Polygynous marriage in a polygynous society is always limited to a minority of men. If 50% of men have two wives each, then the other 50% cannot have any wives. If 25% of men have four wives each, then the other 75% cannot have any wives. When women imagine what living in a polygynous society might be like, they imagine themselves having to share their current, no-good loser of a husband with other women. What they don’t realize is that they could be sharing Matt Damon or Bill Gates with other women.

Once we begin to look at things through the lens of evolutionary psychology and biology, they start to look quite different. Something that we previously thought was quite bizarre and morally wrong, like polygyny, begins to look quite natural and common. The perspective also gives us a new insight, like how women, not men, mostly benefit in polygynous societies.

[Satoshi Kanazawa is an evolutionary psychologist, Reader in Management at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Psychology at University College London, and in the Department of Psychology at Birkbeck College, University of London. He is the coauthor (with the late Alan S. Miller) of Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters (Perigee, 2007).

Satoshi Kanazawa's Psychology Today blog is "The Scientific Fundamentalist."]

Copyright © 2008 Psychology Today

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