Polygamy, the Commodification of Women, and Underdevelopment
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Family systems shape social institutions, yet they are rarely considered in histories of economic development. In this article, we show that a suite of social conventions—such as age gaps at marriage, bride price, sequestration, and discrimi...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
2022
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/144302 |
| _version_ | 1826199633126227968 |
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| author | Seligson, Daniel McCants, Anne EC |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. History Section |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. History Section Seligson, Daniel McCants, Anne EC |
| author_sort | Seligson, Daniel |
| collection | MIT |
| description | <jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Family systems shape social institutions, yet they are rarely considered in histories of economic development. In this article, we show that a suite of social conventions—such as age gaps at marriage, bride price, sequestration, and discrimination and violence against women—are overrepresented in polygamous societies as compared to monogamous societies. This dichotomy can be explained on the grounds that polygamy produces a chronic scarcity of marriageable females. We argue that this suite, which we call gamos and which we quantify by two different methods, has demonstrably significant consequences for social, institutional, and economic development.</jats:p> |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T11:23:00Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/144302 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T11:23:00Z |
| publishDate | 2022 |
| publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1443022023-04-18T19:00:44Z Polygamy, the Commodification of Women, and Underdevelopment Seligson, Daniel McCants, Anne EC Massachusetts Institute of Technology. History Section <jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Family systems shape social institutions, yet they are rarely considered in histories of economic development. In this article, we show that a suite of social conventions—such as age gaps at marriage, bride price, sequestration, and discrimination and violence against women—are overrepresented in polygamous societies as compared to monogamous societies. This dichotomy can be explained on the grounds that polygamy produces a chronic scarcity of marriageable females. We argue that this suite, which we call gamos and which we quantify by two different methods, has demonstrably significant consequences for social, institutional, and economic development.</jats:p> 2022-08-10T17:39:01Z 2022-08-10T17:39:01Z 2022 2022-08-10T17:25:03Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/144302 Seligson, Daniel and McCants, Anne EC. 2022. "Polygamy, the Commodification of Women, and Underdevelopment." Social Science History, 46 (1). en 10.1017/SSH.2021.23 Social Science History Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ application/pdf Cambridge University Press (CUP) Cambridge University Press |
| spellingShingle | Seligson, Daniel McCants, Anne EC Polygamy, the Commodification of Women, and Underdevelopment |
| title | Polygamy, the Commodification of Women, and Underdevelopment |
| title_full | Polygamy, the Commodification of Women, and Underdevelopment |
| title_fullStr | Polygamy, the Commodification of Women, and Underdevelopment |
| title_full_unstemmed | Polygamy, the Commodification of Women, and Underdevelopment |
| title_short | Polygamy, the Commodification of Women, and Underdevelopment |
| title_sort | polygamy the commodification of women and underdevelopment |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/144302 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT seligsondaniel polygamythecommodificationofwomenandunderdevelopment AT mccantsanneec polygamythecommodificationofwomenandunderdevelopment |