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Comment by mrleiter | Hacker News Reader

> Wherever it is widely practised, polygamy (specifically polygyny, the taking of multiple wives) destabilises society, largely because it is a form of inequality which creates an urgent distress in the hearts, and loins, of young men.

I expected that the sentence ends with "...of young women", because they are obviously seen as objects of a man's wealth and not as individual beings. It is an inequality not only of rich and poor but also one of male and female. How can one not see this?

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It makes no sense to discuss objectification in regards to the level of societal development that is implied by polygyny. Nobody there is seen as an individual being in a sense that no one's human rights are guaranteed or even promised to be. This is only about basic needs. Of course, the men at the top are winners, and winners take all. Women are inequally treated by them but get their basic needs covered (safety and resources, reproduction and opportunity to care for their children etc). Majority of men, though, simultaneously have to fend for themselves AND are deprived of sex. They are worse off, biologically and personally. They have less to lose, too: no offspring, no stability, no relationship, however inequal; which makes it so much easier to challenge the status-quo. Moreover, men are more likely to respond to violence in just about any context, especially this. No wonder that their frustration is a greater factor in societal disturbance induced by polygyny.

It's not so different now in America.

In what sense? Unless you mean the MRA/PUA bullshit about 10% of men getting 90% of the women.

Polygyny may actually be advantageous to most women, while being bad for most men: https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200707/ten-politica.... This is because it allows many women to have a more desirable mate than they would otherwise have, while many men end up with no mate at all.

From that perspective, it's no wonder that many patriarchal cultures outlawed polygyny.

In a way we reverted to this situation after women's sexual liberation. Before the time comes to have children, the most attractive men acquire most of the sex. And this is during the time in which women's attractiveness is at its highest.

It is not until it is time to have children that most women settle down with a man of equal attractiveness (and sometimes not even then since the state will step in to provide resources to single mothers).

You seem to be unaware of how many western wonen in their 40s and 50s are having multiple partners.

But don't forget that these women who are in polygamous marriages will have sons, and most of them won't be able to get married, which presumably will make their mothers unhappy. It's a cruel system.

The thesis of this article is that the artificial shortage of females ends up inspiring men to commit violence. The distress caused to women doesn't result in violence, generally.

My guess is because women are already severely oppressed in these societies and it is men's distress that can cause instability because they at least have power.

The men generally don't select the women in these societies; the marriages are arranged by both sets of parents. That's quite a different type of inequality.

Still, women have a quite measurable exchange value. And from the perspective of who has what to say in a marriage, gut feeling tells me it is the husband.

You are confusing "rich men" with "young men" (and men in general actually). If women are treated as objects by afluent people the ones to blame are the "objects" selling themselves and the buyers.

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