Polygyny and democracy: A cross-cultural comparison

Cross-Cultural Research. 2000. Vol. 34, № 2. P. 190-208. Andrey Korotayev (Institute of Cultural Anthropology, Russian State University for Humanities, Moscow) Dmitri Bondarenko (Center for Civilizational and Regional Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow) POLYGYNY AND DEMOCRACY: A CROSS-CULTURAL COMPARISON The communal democracy is shown to be significantly and negatively correlated with polygyny. In its turn the communal democracy is demonstrated to be positively correlated with the democracy of the supracommunal structures. Consequently, it is suggested that the fact that the modern democracy developed in Europe (i.e. the very region which already in the Late Middle Ages was characterized by the highest proportion of complex societies with small monogamous families and democratic communities) might not be a coincidence. In our previous paper (Bondarenko & Korotayev 2000) we considered the relation between family size and communal democracy. It turned out to be negative and significant. However, there were a few points which needed further investigation. When we contrasted small families (both monogamous and occasionally polygynous) with large extended ones (dropping the intermediate values) the negative correlation between family size and communal democracy looked significant beyond any doubt (p = 0.0004) though not strong at all (Phi  0.2). However, when we included all the intermediate values, the correlation, though remaining significant (p = 0.001), dropped to negligible Phi 0.1 (table 1). Spearman Rho = – 0.118; p = 0.001 On the other hand, when we contrasted the exact extremes of the «Domestic Organization» scale (i.e. Independent Nuclear Monogamous Families [thus dropping also value 2 Independent Nuclear Families, Occasional Polygyny] with Large Extended Families) the strength of the correlation grew immediately to reasonable – 0.37. Of course, this needed to be explained. To test our initial hypothesis we chose the largest available world-wide cross-cultural database, the Ethnographic Atlas (Murdock 1967; 1981; Murdock et al. 1986; 1990). The variable which we used as an indicator of the family size was parameter # 8 («Domestic Organization») of the Ethnographic Atlas where (at least in its electronic versions – Murdock et al. 1986; 1990) the families were apparently ranked according to their sizes (see table 1 above). However, on a closer inspection this variable turned out to be much more complex. It became clear that the influence of the «Domestic Organization» parameter in fact combined the action of two elementary variables – family size and polygyny. The immediate impression was that similarly to the family size the polygyny affected the communal democracy negatively. Of course, the decision of the Ethnographic Atlas electronic version editors to ascribe to the unextended polygamous families ranks between the ones of the nuclear monogamous families and the extended families was quite logical, as, according to their size, they occupy just such an intermediate position. However, as a result of this decision a considerable number of societies with general polygyny acquired ranks (4–5) on the «Domestic Organization» scale which were lower than the ones of a considerable number of societies with monogamous or occasionally polygynous extended families (ranks 6–8) – in the Ethnographic Atlas sample only 25% of societies with minimal extended families (rank 6) and 50% of the ones with small extended families (rank 7) have general polygyny. As a result, within cross-tabulation 1 the polygyny factor acted to a considerable extent in the direction which was opposite to the one of the family size factor; and this resulted in so low correlation strength; whereas when we contrasted ranks 1 and 8 of the «Domestic Organization», both factors acted in the same direction producing the highest correlation strength among the whole series of the above mentioned tests. It remained to test if the polygyny was indeed negatively correlated with the communal democracy. Fortunately, the Ethnographic Atlas contains a separate column with the information on the polygamy/monogamy irrespective of the family size (variable 9 MARITAL COMPOSITION: Monogamy and Polygamy). In general, monogamous societies appear to have democratic communities significantly more frequently than the polygynous ones (table 2). Spearman Rho = – 0.26; p < 0.001 Like the family size (Bondarenko & Korotayev 2000) the polygyny also significantly correlates with such indicators of cultural complexity as the number of supracommunal levels and community/settlement size (tables 3 and 4). Phi = 0.29; p < 0.000000001 Phi = 0.45; p < 0.000000001 We can observe again (as with family size [Bondarenko & Korotayev 2000]) a curvilinear relationship. What is more, the shape of the relationship is almost identical both for family size and polygyny (see Diagrams 1 and 2). However, as it was with the family size, there are grounds to maintain that the polygyny is related with the communal democracy relatively independently from the cultural complexity. Indeed, the significant negative correlation is well observed for societies with essentially similar indicators of cultural complexity – for independent communities (Spearman Rho = 0.22; p < 0.001), for societies with 1 supracommunal level (Spearman Rho = –0.17; p = 0.01), for societies with 3 or more supracommunal levels (Spearman Rho = –0.57; p < 0.001), It looks rather remarkable that the percentages of "Democratic" Communities, Nuclear Families and Polygynous Societies turn out to be extremely tightly correlated within the societies with the given number of the supracommunal levels and the given community size (Diagrams 1 & 2): Diagram 1 1 – lack of supracommunal levels 2 – 1 supracommunal level 3 – 2 supracommunal levels 4 – 3 supracommunal levels 5 – 4 supracommunal levels Diagram 2 1–8 – MEAN SIZE OF LOCAL COMMUNITIES: 1 = Fewer than 50; 2 = 50–99; 3 = 100–199; 4 = 200–399; 5 = 400–1000; 6 = 1,000 without any town of more than 5000; 7 = Towns of 5,000–50,000 (one or more); 8 = Cities of more than 50,000 (one or more) In these diagrams the actual number of "cases" is discouragingly small (5 for Diagram 1; and 8 for Diagram 2), as here we are dealing with groups of societies and not individual societies. However, the correlations between all the three variables under consideration have turned out to be so strong  r = –0.956 for the correlation between the percentages of the polygynous societies and democratic communities within the societies with the given number of supracommunal levels, p = 0.006; r = +0.874 for the correlation between the percentages of the nuclear family societies and democratic communities within the societies with the given number of supracommunal levels, p = 0.026; r = –0.638 for the correlation between the percentages of the polygynous societies and democratic communities within the societies with the given community size, p = 0.044. that they appear significant even with such a small number of cases. What could account for the significant negative correlation between the polygyny and the communal democracy? The first explanation which comes to one's mind is to consider the communal democracy as an independent variable, whereas the polygyny would appear as a dependent one. It appears natural that within undemocratic communities the members of their elites would use their monopoly over the power resources in order to maximize the number of their wives; hence, the polygyny would appear as just one more dimension of undemocracy of the respective communities. However, there are some data which provoke doubt with respect to such an interpretation. Those data come first of all from the Circum-Mediterranean region. This region could be easily divided into two subregions – the Christian and Islamic ones. The point is that the communal elites in the Christian Circum-Mediterranean subregion had no option of having more than one wife, as this was most strongly prohibited by the Christian Church (e.g. Goody 1983: 44–46; Herlihy 1993) Note that even in the Islamic world the Christian Church imposed the monogamy within the Christian communities in the most rigid way: "The Moslems were astonished mainly by the fact that the female slaves in the Christian and Jewish houses were not at the sexual disposal of the houses' heads... The cause of this was that the Christian regulation in the East considered the liason of a man with his female slave as lechery which should have been expiated by the formal penance... The Khalif al-Mansu:r once sent to his phisician Georgios three beautiful Greek female slaves and 3,000 golden coins. The phisician accepted the money, but returned the girls back saying to the Khalif: 'I cannot live with them in one house, because for us, the Christians, it is permitted to have one wife only, whereas I already have a wife'..." (Mez 1996/1922: 159). However, in the Islamic world Christians did not constitute anything more than a confessional minority; thus, this fact would not affect Murdock's codes with respect to the Moslem ethnic groups. Of course, within the Christian states the Church had much more opportunities to impose the strictest monogamy among the whole population including the uppermost strata. Of course, one could easily recollect at this point an apparently contradicting case of the polygynous Mormons. Note, however, that "the Mormon Church officially abandoned polygamy 101 years ago [in 1890] after it was forbidden by Utah law in a deal required by Congress for the territory to become a state. The church now excommunicates members for polygamy" (Johnson 1992: 129). . Yet, in this region the negative correlation between the polygyny and communal democracy reveals itself as evidently as with respect to all the other regions (table 5): Spearman Rho = – 0.32; p = 0.005 Hence, one would suppose that the monogamy could well be one of the possible factors of the development of the communal democracy and not only its result. What could account for the "democratizing" influence of the monogamy? It seems reasonable to connect it with the difference in the socialization practices within polygynous vs. monogamous families. The "non-democratizing" influence of the polygyny might be connected, among other factors, with the well-known "father-absence" factor (Burton & Whiting 1961; Bacon, Child, & Barry 1963; B. Whiting 1965; Munroe, Munroe, & Whiting 1981; Kon 1987: 32–33 &c). The above-mentioned authors have shown that the boys raised within the environment consisting mainly of women tend to develop personalities inclined towards aggressive domination-oriented behavior. Another important contribution belongs to Rohner (1975) who has shown that the development of the above-mentioned personality strongly correlates with the lack of the parental warmth, whereas such a lack is most typical for the polygynous families (especially for the non-sororal ones) characterized by the low degree of co-wives' co-operation – as a result, the co-wives are left too often face-to-face with their children without any hope for external assistance. It is well-known that such a situation provokes the lack of sufficient parental warmth and affection, excessively severe punishment of children (J. W. M. Whiting 1960; Minturn & Lambert 1964; Rohner 1975; Levinson 1979), which tend to produce the aggressive domination-oriented personality specified above. One would expect that the presence of the respective modal personality would contribute to the prevalence of the non-democratic power structures. Note that the positive correlation between the presence of polygyny and hierarchical power structures seems to be attested even with respect to the non-human primates (Shnirel’man 1994: 63–64). In this paper we would restrict ourselves to just an illustration of how the polygyny could influence the society power structures through certain socialization practices. From what have been mentioned above, one would expect that in the polygynous societies the maternal warmth towards boys would be significantly lower than in the monogamous ones. Our test of the respective hypothesis has produced the following results (table 6): Spearman Rho = – 0.55; p = 0.06 Commentary: Since the Ethnographic Atlas does not contain the data on socialization we used the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample Data Base instead of the Atlas. As a source for the data regarding warmth and affection of mother towards boy we used Rohner & Rohner 1982. The data on polygyny come from Murdock & Wilson 1972. As one could see the negative correlation between the polygyny and the maternal warmth towards boys turns out to be so strong that even notwithstanding the extremely small size of the Rohners' sample it appears to be virtually significant. From what we have mentioned above one would expect that the societies characterized by more maternal warmth towards boys would tend to be more democratic. The test of this hypothesis has produced the following results (table 7): Spearman Rho = + 0.64; p = 0.045 Commentary: As a source for the data regarding Democracy of the political organization we used Tuden & Marshall 1972. The variable which we have chosen is SELECTION OF EXECUTIVE which has the following values: 1 = Absent; 2 = Patrilineal, Fa to So; 3 = Patrilineal, Fa to FaBr, then to So; 4 = Matrilineal, MoBr to SiSo; 5 = Matrilineal, MoBr to MoBr; 6 = Ruling family; 7 = Decision by limited power group; 8 = Elected by council; 9 = Informal recognition; 10 = Formal elections; 11 = Appointee of alien society; 12 = Divination. We have not considered the societies with value 1, whereas the values 8-9 have been re-coded as 1 (Democracy Present) and all the other values have been re-coded as 0 (Democracy Absent). In this case the correlation (which is in the predicted direction) turns out to be so strong that, though the extremely small sample size here has even decreased, the correlation appears to be unequivocally significant. In general, our overall explanatory model looks as follows. We suggest that the family structure (determined in its turn by a large number of independent factors, both material [e.g. economic] and ideal [e.g. religious]) could affect significantly the overall political evolution of the respective societies. We believe, that the family structures affects primarily the political organization of the community (and we think we have provided enough substantial support for this point above). However, we also believe that the communal political structure could influence significantly the political organization of the supracommunal levels (see also Bondarenko & Korotayev 2000). It remains to test statistically this hypothesis too. The results of the respective test are presented below (table 8): Fisher’s Exact Test p = 0.000005; Phi = + 0.56 Commentary: for the source of data for the democracy of the suprscommunal organization see the commentary to the previous table. As a source of data on the communal democracy for the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample we used Murdock & Wilson 1972 (Local Political Succession, Primary). The re-coding has been done along the same lines as with respect to the previous variable. This table, naturally, does not consider the societies lacking supracommunal levels of political administration. As one could see the correlation between the democracy of the communal organization and the democracy of the supracommunal political organization turns out to be really strong and significant. Thus, we suggest that the family structures could influence the communal political organization through the socialization practices associated with them. In its turn, the communal political organization appears to influence the political structure of the supracommunal levels. Hence, one would expect to find the significant negative correlation not only between the polygyny and family size, on the one hand, and the communal democracy, on the other, but also with the democracy of the highest level of the political structure. The respective tests have produced the following results (tables 9 and 10): Spearman Rho = – 0.23; p = 0.037 Spearman Rho = – 0.40; p = 0.00025 It is not difficult to see that the respective correlations above are stronger than the ones between the polygyny and family size, on the one hand, and the communal democracy, on the other. This might be not coincidental, and seems to fit our model rather well – indeed, we suggest that the family structures influence the political organization of the society first of all through the communal political organization. However, within the complex multicommunal societies the family structures could influence macropolitical organization directly – as the elites placed outside the normal communal organization still get their socialization in families whose structure should affect the modal personality type of the members of the respective elite groups. Hence, within such societies the family structure would influence the macropolitical organization in two ways – both through the community, and directly. Consequently, the above-mentioned stronger correlation turns out to be rather easily explicable. We shall finish this paper with the consideration of a point which could appear marginal; yet, it seems to clarify much with respect to the understanding of some rather important macroevolutionary processes. We shall begin this final note by drawing the reader's attention to the fact that the negative correlation between the occasional polygyny vs. monogamy and the communal democracy also appears significant (table 11): Fisher's Exact Test: p = 0.00001 This fact needs some clarification, of course. On the one hand it is not so easy to understand how the socialization of a rather small number of the society members in a very restricted number of polygynous families could produce significant impact on the overall political structure of the respective societies. On the other hand, it appears reasonable to take into consideration the simple fact that within complex stratified occasionally polygynous societies these are almost invariably the elites who practice the polygyny. In addition to this it appears reasonable to take into consideration that within such societies such families normally constitute a rather closed circle with their own socialization practices significantly different from the socialization practices of the commoners (e.g. Butinov 1985). However, within the framework of such societies it would be precisely this closed circle of families which would produce persons occupying the positions of authority. Hence, the polygynous organization of the respective restricted number of families could well influence the political organization of the respective societies in general. At this point we come to the most difficult problem of any cross-cultural research, the problem of the causation direction. Is it really possible to consider the strict prohibition of the polygyny by the Christian Church as one of the causes of the development of the modern democracy in Europe? On the one hand, the transition from the general to occasional polygyny among the intensive plow agriculturalists seems to be caused mainly by economic factors (Burton & Reitz 1981; White 1988; White & Burton 1988) which made the polygyny impossible for the main part of the intensive agriculturalists. However, this does not appear to explain the total prohibition of the polygyny for everybody including the members of the upper strata (who always retained the economic opportunities to support more than one wife). Hence, the total absence of the polygyny in the Christian part of the Circum-Mediterranean region (but not in its Moslem part It appears remarkable that we would find the total absence of polygyny in Christian societies neighboring the Moslem societies living under entirely similar economic and ecological conditions and practicing (at least occasionally) polygyny (e.g. the Montenegrans [Jelavic 1983: 81–97; Fine 1987: 529–536] vs. the Highland Albanians [Pisko 1896; Durham 1909; 1928; Coon 1950; Hasluck 1954; Jelavic 1983: 78–86; Fine 1987: 49–54, 599–604, etc.]).) could be hardly explained by anything else but by the strict prohibition of the polygyny by the Christian Church. Though some regulations which established the monogamy as the norm were imposed by the Church still in the Roman times, even in the 12th century, when marriage was declared a sacrament, the Church had to struggle severely against rudiments of polygyny among both the elite and common people, for example in France. And the struggle for the observation of the Christian marital norms among the elite strata of the knighthood went on even in the 13th century (Bessmertnyj 1989). Of course, it might be not coincidental either that within the two religions strictly prohibiting the polygyny (classical Judaism and Christianity) the respective norms originated in the 1st millennium BC within the intensive agriculturalist society of Palestine mainly through the activities of the independent (non-temple) prophets (coming basically from non-elite strata) who appear to have managed to impose the monogamous marriage already predominant among the commoners on the elites (e.g. Diakonoff, Neronova, & Jakobson 1983). It might be not a coincidence either that the Prophet of Islam (whose social status moved during his life from the middle to upper-class level) retained the legitimacy of the polygyny. Of course, when in the 4th century AD the Christian Church imposed the regulations which made the monogamous nuclear family the predominant family form (i.e. the ones which prohibited close marriages, discouraged adoption, condemned polygyny, concubinage, divorce and remarriage) it in no way tried to contribute to the development of modern democracy in Western Europe more than one millennium later. As has been suggested by Goody (1983: 44–46), the Church appears to have striven towards obtaining the property left by couples lacking legitimate male heirs. However, the unintended consequence of those actions was the formation of a relatively homogenous macro-region consisting of nuclear monogamous families. Of course, the Greeks and Romans were monogamous well prior to the Christianization. Note, however, that the pre-Christian Germans, Celts, and Slavs were quite polygynous in the pre-Christian period (Herlihy 1993: 41). Hence, the formation of the zone of uninterrupted monogamy in Europe could be hardly attributed to anything but the Christianization. We do not believe this is a coincidence that a few centuries later we find this region consisting predominantly of democratic communities (Udal’tsova 1985–1987). And it could also hardly be a coincidence that it was this very region where the modern supracommunal democracy originated. This point seems to be able to clarify the causal direction of the link between the communal and supracommunal democracy. In this respect, it appears to be rather significant that the formation of the communal democracy in Europe preceded the development of democracy of the supracommunal political structures. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Our research has been supported by the Ministry of General and Professional Education of the Russian Federation Research Program Language, Culture, Society (project # 01.0100.99.F). It is also the authors' pleasure to acknowledge Dr. Carol R. Ember at the Human Relations Area Files, New Haven as well as those present at the Russian Contributions to Quantitative Cross-Cultural Research panel held within the Annual Meeting of the Society for Cross-Cultural Research (Santa Fe, NM, February 1999), William T. Divale, Melvin Ember, and R. Lee Munroe, for extremely fruitful and provocative discussions on the topic of this article. We thank them and referees for CRR for their comments. We wish to emphasize that they cannot be blamed for the paper’s imperfections. BIBLIOGRAPHY Bacon, M. K., Child, I. L., & Barry, III, H. (1963). A Cross-Cultural Study of Correlates of Crime. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 66, 291-300. Bessmertnyj, Ju. L. (1989). K izucheniju matrimonial’nogo povedenija vo Frantsii XII–XIII vekov [On Nuptial Behavior in France, the 12th and 13th Centuries]. In Odissey, 1989, 98–113. Bondarenko, D., & Korotayev, A. (2000). Family Size and Community Organization: A Cross-Cultural Comparison. 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Moskva: Institut etnologii i antropologii RAN. Tuden, A., & Marshall, C. (1972). Political Organization: Cross-Cultural Codes 4. Ethnology, 11, 436–464. Udal’tsova, Z. V. (19851987). (Ed.), Istorija krest’janstva v Evrope [The History of Peasantry in Europe]. Vol. 1–3. Moskva: Nauka. White, D. R. (1988). Causes of Polygyny. Current Anthropology, 29, 529–558. White, D. R., & Burton, M. L. (1988). Causes of Polygyny: Ecology, Economy, Kinship and Warfare. American Anthropologist, 90, 871–887. Whiting, B. B. (1965). Sex Identity and Physical Violence: A Comparative Study. American Anthropologist, 67, 123–140. Whiting, J. W. M. (1960). Resource Mediation and Learning by Identification. In Iscoe, I. & Stevenson, H. (Eds.), Personality Development in Children (pp. 112–126). Austin: University of Texas Press. Andrey Korotayev is a professor and head of the Laboratory of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow, Russia. He is senior research fellow of the Oriental Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences. He received a Ph.D. from Manchester University and a doctor of science degree from the Oriental Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He has done field research in Yemen and Libya. He is the author of over 90 publications, including 5 monographs (Ancient Yemen [1995], Factors of Social Evolution [1997], Chiefdoms and Tribes of the Land of Hashid and Bakil [1998] &c). His research focuses on social evolution, cross-cultural research, and Arabian anthropology. Dmitri Bondarenko is a senior research fellow and head of the Department of Civilizational and Anthropological Studies at the Center for Civilizational and Regional Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences and an Associate Professor at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and the School of History, Political Science and Law at the Russian State University for the Humanities in Moscow. He received a Ph.D. from Institute for African Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Dmitri Bondarenko is the author of over 80 publications, including two monographs (Benin on the Eve of the First Contacts with Europeans: Person. Society. Authority [1995], Civilizations Theory and the Dynamics of Historical Process in Precolonial Tropical Africa [1997]) and 9 edited volumes. He is a member of the Society for Cross-Cultural Research, the European Association of Social Anthropologists, and World Archaeological Congress. His spheres of interest include the formation and evolution of complex societies, the Civilizations Theory, Cultural Anthropology of Tropical Africa. PAGE 2