Polygyny can Lead to Greater Health and Wealth for Women and Their Children

When comparing households within individual villages, polygynous households often had better access to food and had healthier children.

Polygyny is a practice where one husband has more wives than one. A new study has suggested that polygyny may not be as bad as it is often made out to be. Researchers found that the practice of sharing a husband may, in some circumstances, lead to greater health and wealth for women and their children.

For the study, the research teams compared polygynous and monogamous households in 56 villages in northern Tanzania, where polygyny is widespread among certain ethnic groups, including the Maasai. When comparing households within individual villages, polygynous households often had better access to food and had healthier children. Polygynous households also owned more cattle and farmed more land than monogamous households.

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The study findings support evolutionary anthropological accounts of marriage indicating that polygyny can be in a woman's strategic interest when women depend on men for resources.

One of the researchers Monique Borgerhoff Mulder from University of California, Davis in the US, said, "If you have a choice of a guy who has 180 cows, lots of land and other wives, it might be better for you to marry him rather than a guy who has no wives, three cows and one acre."

The study highlighted the importance of local context in studying the health implications of cultural practices, and suggest that in some settings, prohibiting polygyny could be disadvantageous to women by restricting their marriage options. Borgerhoff Mulder said, "The issue is not the number of partners. Women should be assured the autonomy to make the decisions they want."

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Lead author of the study David Lawson from London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine explained, "Our study suggests that highly polygynous, predominantly Maasai, villages do poorly not because of polygyny, but because of vulnerability to drought, low service provision and broader socio-political disadvantages."

The study was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Polygyny can Lead to Greater Health and Wealth for Women and Their Children

When comparing households within individual villages, polygynous households often had better access to food and had healthier children.