I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do!

Want to live a little longer? Get a second wife. New research suggests that men from polygamous cultures outlive those from monogamous ones.

After accounting for socioeconomic differences, men aged over 60 from 140 countries that practice polygamy to varying degrees lived on average 12% longer than men from 49 mostly monogamous nations, says Virpi Lummaa, an ecologist at the University of Sheffield, UK.

Lummaa presented her findings last week at the International Society for Behavioral Ecology’s annual meeting in Ithaca, New York.

Rather than a call to polygamy, the research might solve a long-standing puzzle in human biology: Why do men live so long?

This question only makes sense after asking the same for women, who – unlike nearly all other animals – live long past the menopause.

Enforced monogamy

One answer seems to be a phenomenon called the grandmother effect. For every 10 years a woman survives past the menopause, she gains two additional grandchildren, Lummaa says. It seems that doting on and spoiling grandchildren aids their survival, as well as furthering some of their grandmother’s genes.

Men, by contrast, can reproduce well into their 60s and even 70s and 80s, and most researchers assumed this explained their longevity. But Lummaa and colleague Andy Russell wondered whether other factors explained the long lifespan of men, such as a grandfather effect.

To test this possibility, the team analysed church-gathered records for 25,000 Finns from the 18th and 19th centuries. People tended to move little, no one practiced contraception and the Lutheran Church enforced monogamy.

Only widowed men could remarry, and if they had children with their new wife, they fathered more kids, on average, than men who married once.

But ultimately remarried men “don’t end up with any more grandchildren,” Lummaa says. “If anything the presence of a grandfather was associated with decreased survival of grandchildren.”

Perhaps, Lummaa adds, the children of the first mother lose out on food and resources that go to the second mother’s kids. “It’s kind of the Cinderella effect.”

Even fathers with only one wife provided no benefit to their grandchildren, a finding supported by previous research.

Biological selection

With the grandfather effect ruled out, Lummaa and Russell next wondered whether the constraints of human physiology explain male longevity. In the same way that men have nipples that evolved for women to nourish their young, male longevity might be a consequence of biological selection for long-lived women.

To answer this question, the researchers compared the lifespan of men from polygamous countries with those from monogamous nations.

Using data from the World Health Organization, Lummaa and Russell scored 189 countries on a monogamy scale of one to four – totally monogamous to mostly polygamous. They also took into account a country’s gross domestic product and average income to minimise the effect of better nutrition and healthcare in monogamous Western nations.

Lummaa stressed that their monogamy score is a crude first stab, and they are working to find multiple ways to assess marriage patterns. The conclusions could evaporate under further analysis, she adds.

If female survival is the main explanation for male longevity, then monogamous and polygamous men would live for about the same length of time. Instead, it seems that fathering more kids with more wives leads to increased male longevity. Men, then, live long because they’re fertile well into their grey years.

The explanation could be both social and genetic. Men who continue fathering kids into their 60s and 70s could take better care for their bodies because they have mouths to feed. But evolutionary forces acting over thousands of years could also select for longer-lived men in polygamous cultures.

“It’s a valid hypothesis and good prediction,” says Chris Wilson, an evolutionary anthropologist at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, who attended the talk. But the care and attention of several wives who depend on the social status of their ageing husband could explain everything. “It doesn’t surprise me that men in those societies live longer than men in monogamous societies, where they become widowed and have nobody to care for them.”

Polygamy isn't appealing to everyone. It is appealing to some. Those who find it appealing do so for many different reasons. Some believe one form is a religious command. Others are simply ethical no monogamists who want to be married to more than one partner. Some find it provides a preferable division of labor. There are many other reasons.

The important thing is allowing all adults, regardless of their gender, sexual orientation, race, or religion, their right to share love, sex, residence, and marriage (and any of those without the others) with any & all consenting adults. Let consenting adults have the relationships to which they menu tally agree, without prosecution, bullying, or discrimination.

Advantages of Polygamy :

1. Polygamy has been present in history for a long time

2. Humans are polygamist by nature

3. Bigger selection of partners

4. Lower risk that people get bored in a marriage

5. Bigger families imply more connections

6. Concept of one soulmate for everyone is flawed anyway

7. Can expand your gene pool

8. Makes sense if there is no balance between males and females in a region

9. Polygamy as sort of status symbol

10. Lower incentive to cheat in a marriage

11. Fear of losing your partner may be lower with polygamy

12. You don’t have to make compromises

Polygamy has been present in history for a long time :

Polygamy is not a new concept at all. In fact, we as humans lived in a polygamous state throughout the history of mankind. Only in recent centuries, the concept of monogamy became more popular. However, from a historical perspective, polygamy makes quite a lot of sense and what had been good for many thousands of years may also be considered to be good in our current state of the world.

Hence, from a historical perspective, practicing polygamy can make quite a lot of sense and monogamy is a rather recent invention that needs to prove itself yet.

Humans are polygamist by nature :

In fact, humans are polygamist by nature. For many thousands of years, people really struggled to survive and had to search for food and shelter. Quite often, polygamous families formed since it was just the only way to survive for many people.

Consequently, humans evolved with a polygamist nature and it is deep inside our DNA that we need more than one partner to be happy in the long run.

Therefore, polygamy also makes quite a lot of sense and may be superior over monogamy also from a gene development perspective.

Bigger selection of partners :

Another advantage of polygamy is that there will be a variety of different partners available to you. In fact, if you live in a polygamous relationship, you can have multiple partners at the same time without being accused of cheating. Depending on your preferences, this can mean that you only have two spouses or even numerous different spouses at the same time.

The exact number is up to you and to your individual preferences. In general, polygamy allows you to have a bigger selection of partners at the same time and in case one partner annoys you quite a lot, you can simply spend your time with your other spouses and neglect the annoying spouse for a while.

Thus, a bigger variety of different partners can make your life easier in the sense that you can choose with whom you want to spend your time with.

Lower risk that people get bored in a marriage :

Another benefit of polygamy is that there will be lower risk that people get bored in their marriage. Let’s be honest. In our current state of the world, most marriages are just maintained since people are too lazy to divorce. Some people also fear the financial consequences of divorce and therefore stay married to their partners.

However, most people in a marriage get bored over time and urgently want to experience something new. Yet, they will not be allowed to do so since they are only allowed to have one spouse in a conventional monogamous partnership.

Consequently, in order to give people the option to explore new partners and to make life more interesting in general, polygamy can also make quite a lot of sense in this regard.

Bigger families imply more connections :

If you live in a polygamous relationship, your family will be bigger than the family of people who live in monogamous relationships on average. In turn, this also implies that you will have more connections and a stronger social network. Networks and connections to different people are quite important to succeed in various parts of life.

For instance, if you want to get a demanding corporate job that pays quite a lot of money, your chances will increase significantly if you have connections inside the company. The same is true for many other parts of life and therefore, polygamy can also increase your overall chances in life in general.

Concept of one soulmate for everyone is flawed anyway

Many people still believe in the soulmate myth. This means that people believe that there is only one partner for every person on earth with whom they should spend their lives together in a monogamous relationship. However, if we have a look at statistics and marriage data, we realize that this concept is laughable.

Around half of all marriages will result in a divorce and after the divorce happened, many people will search for a new partner. Hence, the soulmate myth is actually based on a flawed argumentation and the related need for monogamy can be rejected pretty easily when we have a closer look at how the world really works.

Can expand your gene pool :

Another upside of polygamy is that it can also help you to expand your gene pool. In fact, many studies have shown that a variety of different genes is best for humanity since it lowers the vulnerability for diseases.

By sleeping with more than one partner and by having children with your different spouses, you can expand your gene pool quite a lot and you can make sure that your genes will be passed forward from many different children.

Thus, having multiple children with multiple partners can not only make sense on the individual level, it can also make sense from a global human gene perspective.

Makes sense if there is no balance between males and females in a region

Polygamous relationships can also make quite a lot of sense in regions where there is a significant imbalance between men and women. In fact, if there are far more women than men in the respective region, it can make sense that a man has multiple women. This can not only be beneficial for the man, but also for his wives since those wives will be provided with shelter and food.

Hence, polygamous relationships are especially senseful in poor regions where people struggle to survive without a partner and where there is a significant gender imbalance.

Polygamy as sort of status symbol :

In some cultures, having multiple spouses at the same time is also considered as kind of a status symbol. This is especially true for men. In fact, the more wives a man has, the higher his social status will be in society. In turn, other men often want to be like this guy and the men that have multiple wives will often be the most respected men in those societies.

Thus, depending on the respective region, it can also make quite a lot of sense to live a polygamous lifestyle in order to increase social status and the overall level of acceptance in society.

Lower incentive to cheat in a marriage:

People who have multiple partners will also have a lower incentive to cheat on their partners. In fact, if you have a big selection of different partners, you will not feel too much urge to go out and to cheat on your partners. Instead, you can stay at home and choose the wife you want to spend time with according to your preferences.

In fact, many people in a monogamous relationship cheat on their partners since they are just quite fed up with him or her and want to experience new things.

Therefore, polygamy can also make quite a lot of sense since cheating would no longer be necessary and feelings would not be hurt as often as in monogamous relationships.

Fear of losing your partner may be lower with polygamy:

Another benefit of polygamy is that the fear of losing your partner may be much lower compared to monogamous relationships. If you have multiple spouses, you will not fear too much to lose one of them since there will be many others left. In fact, if one spouse wants to leave you, you will still have many other spouses around you and you can even replace him or her with another partner.

In turn, the fear of losing your partner will be quite limited due to this fact, which in turn also implies a higher overall quality of life since you don’t have to worry about losing your partner too much.

You don’t have to make compromises:

When you are in a polygamous relationship, you also don’t have to make any compromises. In fact, if you provide for all of your spouses, you will also be the one in charge and can lead the relationship. This also implies that you can basically do whatever you want and don’t have to comply with the preferences of your spouses.

If one spouse is not fine with your decisions, he or she could leave the relationship and you will still have enough spouses left who are fine with your decisions and views on the world.