[分享]Slate/Undercover Economist: Polygamy

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Jun
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[分享]Slate/Undercover Economist: Polygamy

Post by Jun » 2007-01-29 10:33

In the spirit of tongue-in-cheek extremist arguments, I'm posting this article from Slate so that I don't have to get spankings by Knowing and Xiaoxixi (which I greatly enjoy if only they are willing to dispense it to me :mrgreen: ).
I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do
The economic case for polygamy.
By Tim Harford
Posted Saturday, Feb. 18, 2006, at 2:27 AM ET


After more than a decade of war between separatist rebels and the Russian army, there are not many marriageable men to go around in Chechnya. So, acting Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov, probably not a feminist, proposed a radical step: "Each man who can provide for four wives should do it."

Polygyny (having more than one wife, as opposed to polygamy, which is having more than one spouse) is admissible under Islamic law but not Russian law, so Kadyrov is unlikely to make much progress with his proposal. But what difference would such a law make? It's natural to assume that polygyny is bad for women, partly because most of us would rather have our spouse to ourselves, and partly because we look at a place like Saudi Arabia, where polygyny is not uncommon, and note that women aren't even allowed to drive.

I'm not quite so convinced. A lot of the knee-jerk reactions against polygyny are from people who can't add up. In a society with equal numbers of men and women, each man with four wives gives women the additional pick of three men―the poor saps whose potential wives decided they'd prefer one-quarter of a billionaire instead. In the Sahel region of Africa, half of all women live in polygynous households. The other half have a good choice of men and a lot more bargaining power.

It's hardly surprising that in most polygynous societies, the bride's family gets large payments in exchange for her hand in marriage. If polygyny combined with women's rights, I bet we'd see more promises to wash the dishes. Not everybody would have to share a husband, but I can think of some who might prefer half of Orlando Bloom to all of Tim Harford―including my wife.

In a society such as Chechnya, where there is a shortage of young men, we would expect the reverse effect: Men get to pick and choose, playing the field, perhaps not bothering to get married at all. We don't have good data on Chechnya, but we have excellent information about an unexpected parallel.

A little over one in 100 American men are in prison―but there are several states where one in five young black men are behind bars. Since most women marry men of a similar age, and of the same race and in the same state, there are some groups of women who face a dramatic shortfall of marriage partners.

Economist Kerwin Charles has recently studied the plight of these women. Their problem is not merely that some who would want to marry won't be able to. It's that the available men―those not in prison―suddenly have more bargaining power. Goodbye to doing the dishes and paying the rent; hello to mistresses and wham, bam, thank you ma'am. The women whose potential partners have had their ranks thinned by prison are less likely to marry, and when they do marry, are likely to marry a man less educated than they are. Meanwhile, the remaining men, finding a surfeit of marriage partners, suddenly seem in no hurry to marry. And why would they?

The women's response makes sense: girl power. The women affected do everything to make the most of single life, including staying at school for longer and hunting for more paid work. The American prison system hasn't left them much choice.

When men are taken out of the marriage market by war or by prison, women suffer. The reverse is probably true, too: When women are taken from the marriage market, men suffer. In China, the policy of one-child families coupled with selective abortion of girls has produced "surplus" males. Such men are called "bare branches," and China could have 30 million of them by 2020. Perhaps polyandry―women with multiple husbands―would be the logical response to the situation in China. What will happen instead is that these lonely, wifeless men will end up sleeping with a relatively small number of women―prostitutes―with severe risks of sexually transmitted disease all around.

All this suggests that Kadyrov has a point about Chechnya. And perhaps the new HBO series Big Love will help to rehabilitate polygamy's reputation in the United States. Nevertheless, I am resolutely against the practice of allowing several women to marry one man. We men are downtrodden enough already.

The Undercover Economist appears on Saturdays in the Financial Times Magazine.

Tim Harford is a columnist for the Financial Times. His latest book is The Undercover Economist, which will be published in paperback on Jan. 30, 2007.

Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2136453/

karen
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Post by karen » 2007-01-29 14:36

I get the feeling this piece is a jest, meant to poke fun (or holes) at the proposal.

Shortage of men is nothing new to Russians. They did manage all those wars just fine.

Knowing
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Post by Knowing » 2007-01-30 23:36

我真不该理睬你这种明显的撩拨。人又不能切开,一个男人发一点二五个女人,要用多妻制加妇女独立调节婚龄男女那百分之五百分之十的不平衡来维持社会安定是不可能的。多妻制的基础就是妇女是附属品必须结婚。就为了调节那一点性别不平衡,大家都不结婚,随便乱睡不就完了。有能力的就多出去乱搞,没能力的跟家里素着,或者搞搞网恋。多妻制弄的贫富不匀特别明显,绝对不利社区的和谐。反面例子正好是摩门教。摩门教里提倡多妻的社区也不是那么多,就一个sect搞比较狠。但是这个sect正好是反例--青年没有钱送不起礼给当权的教头,讨不上老婆,年轻女孩子都被指给有钱老头了--非常不利安定团结;怎么维护安定团结呢?把年轻男孩子赶出社区。上述是CNN 的节目"The lost boys"里一群儿摩门少年出来控诉的,我不负责准确性啊。
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Jun
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Post by Jun » 2007-01-31 8:23

Of course it is beyond stupid to apply market theory to the mating game. But it's funny.

Besides provoking a spanking from you, I also want to demonstrate, by presenting these theories that are obviously wrong, that people tend to come up with and buy into theories that seem to be PERFECTLY LOGICAL but COMPLETELY WRONG.

火星狗
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Post by 火星狗 » 2007-01-31 10:31

这一篇倒未必是perfectly logical,更像是偏锋文章,只采用(one or two pieces)有利的论据。有一句我想了半天也没明白,为什么把polygyny和妇女权益结合起来,就有人愿意洗盘子?不知道是逻辑漏洞还是我悟性太差。

另外这一篇很难激发人的战斗欲望,一看就觉得absurd/funny。

Knowing
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Post by Knowing » 2007-01-31 14:48

Tim Harford supposely wrote a humourous column, so I assume he was trying to be funny -- personally I found his effort to entertain was quite a failure. :spamafote:
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Jun
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Post by Jun » 2007-01-31 16:06

It's perfectly logical when the argument is confined within the small set of variables and assumptions. Of course, it's wrong, but it's still as logical as 1+1=2. My point is that absurdity can come out of logic, so beware of arguments that sound reasonable. Most popular theories sound reasonable but wrong, but people buy into them like crazy.

I think it's funny. :lol:

Why is it absurd and wrong? Because marriage between a man and a woman is not like buying a tv set -- you pay for it, you get the tv set, you are $xxx poorer. It's a simple transaction. Mating is different. Even when the society demands one-to-one monogamy as the only institution of mating, people are not one-to-one transactions. One man or one woman can and DO have transactions with many of the opposite sex. In the market of sexual relationships, a person can be counted as more than 1 unit -- actually he or she is, in practice, an indeterminate number of units, because some people have no "transaction" with anyone while others have transactions with 100 others!

I love making logical arguments! :mrgreen:

Knowing
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Post by Knowing » 2007-01-31 16:22

你的意见很好啊。我建议你继<美女与钻石>之后,把上述观点展开一下,隆重推出<论非处女不娶的合理性>,第三篇呢, 我都替你想好了,就谈谈<女子无才便是德的现代社会学阐述>。如果这些文章还不能引起大家的攻击性,(嗨谁叫这里是妇女居多,基因里就缺乏攻击性呢)建议你转换目标,写一些<弯男都是SLUT的基因证明>。 :dog001: :dog001: :dog001:
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Jun
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Post by Jun » 2007-01-31 16:30

Nah. My all-time favorite theory is "Homosexuality in women is all in your head." :mrgreen: And "Universal homosexual tendencies in men"...
Last edited by Jun on 2007-01-31 16:35, edited 1 time in total.

Knowing
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Post by Knowing » 2007-01-31 16:35

:f16: :f16: :f16: :f16: These are awesome theories. I am sure a lot of straight men will agree with you on the first one and list themselves as living proof -- they have women's homosexuality in their heads ALL the time. And of cause, all gay men will agree with you on the second one.
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笑嘻嘻
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Post by 笑嘻嘻 » 2007-02-02 23:07

作为朋友呢,我得说第一这个游戏一点也不好玩,第二这篇文章一点都没有逻辑,第三呢也许你可以看一点关于社会学的初级书籍,既然你对这些问题这样感兴趣。
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Knowing
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Post by Knowing » 2007-02-03 11:02

你觉得不好玩,她玩的起劲着呢。 :mrgreen:
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Post by Jun » 2007-02-03 16:44

这个我最好还是解释一下,免得你以为我只是想耍人玩。我做这个橡皮筋理论的exercise,主要有几个动机:

1.
你可以看一点关于社会学的初级书籍,既然你对这些问题这样感兴趣
我的确对社会心理学感兴趣,但是看了一些理论都觉得很不满意,为什么呢?就是因为太多想当然耳的理论,看上去很有逻辑但是没有基础科学那样的严谨,太多偏见和wishful thinking,包括为什么人类男性天生喜欢乱搞而女性天生追求从一而终什么什么的。伪科学之所以有市场是因为它听上去很有说服力。引用一下白博的格言,理论一毛钱一打,证明了才算数。社会学和心理学我觉得很靠不住,就是因为看得太多这种一毛钱一打的说法。我好奇,想设身处地了解一下这些理论的道德诱惑。

2. 我这个人一向有点偏向主观的态度,在网上尤其容易放纵自己说话口气比较强硬,站在"对"的立场,通过与别人争论占领"真理"的高地。但是最近看到一些Sam Harris类型的无神论极端人士的说法,让我反省,虽然在有些事情上深信自己掌握客观的真理或者肯定自己是对的,那又怎样?我有没有这个胆量,去empathize with people I believe are wrong?

3. 很多时候,或许我对一些事情的看法相当肯定,或者觉得已经透彻地了解,但只有在跟反方深入辩论后才发现,其实我并不真正透彻理解真理,越辩才越明,明白的更多是自己。打个比方,在"相信"进化论的人中,很多其实并不知道进化论到底是怎么回事,也不知道进化论为什么是真实描绘现实世界的规律,或许只是习惯而已,因为从小就这么相信过来的。当然,那也没什么,不过我这个人的怪僻是我不喜欢自己生存在接受未经辩证过的理论。男女应该平等吗?男女在自然客观的平面上(而不是社会后天定义)是平等的吗?当然,对多数人来说,我这是吃饱了撑的,的确,就是脑子发热,象Don Quixote 那样挑战风车。我就是不喜欢轻易接受既定的理论和说法--我怕我相信是因为这些说法让我feel good。实际上我对一切让人feel good的理论习惯持怀疑态度。利用双手互搏,我能比较彻底地检查自认为是正确的理论,对很多事情有新的认识, 同时在被你们扁的过程中学习到未曾想到过的看问题的角度和知识。

Knowing
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Post by Knowing » 2007-02-04 10:58

你真有精力。。。 :shock:
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ravaged
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Post by ravaged » 2007-02-04 13:58

i don't know much (well, anything) about sociology, but from what i know about social sciences, the assumptions that disparate theories are based on are not meant to be derived from statistically cogent observations or laws about human behavior (assuming for now that such observation is possible). they are prima facie assertions that are considered so fundamental to epistemology that they cannot be proved or disproved. this doesn't mean that there's only one assumption; there're usually a few wildly different ones from which entire schools are born, and of course theories are constantly evaluated for their explanatory power and challenged. it also doesn't mean that assumptions don't change, but they tend to go through abrupt tectonic shifts only occasionally. it may be frustrating, but given the impossibility to separate the target from the observer in any study of human behavior, the use of statistical or other scientific methods plays more of a subsidiary role. (those of you quant social scientists, feel free to ignore my take. :P)

have you come across thomas kuhn's book on paradigm shift? it's a great book on the evolution of both the sciences and social science.
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Now that happy moment between the time the lie is told and when it is found out.

ravaged
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Post by ravaged » 2007-02-04 14:00

and i speak as a refugee from academia but one who still looks back with some empathy and nostalgia. so i can't vouch for my objectivity. :lol:
Now that happy moment between the time the lie is told and when it is found out.

85192820

Post by 85192820 » 2007-02-16 5:45

1夜情呢~这也得考虑1下~

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