No evidence that polygynous marriage is a harmful cultural practice in northern Tanzania.

ABSTRACT: Polygyny is cross-culturally common and a topic of considerable academic and policy interest, often deemed a harmful cultural practice serving the interests of men contrary to those of women and children. Supporting this view, large-scale studies of national African demographic surveys consistently demonstrate that poor child health outcomes are concentrated in polygynous households. Negative population-level associations between polygyny and well-being have also been reported, consistent with the hypothesis that modern transitions to socially imposed monogamy are driven by cultural group selection. We challenge the consensus view that polygyny is harmful, drawing on multilevel data from 56 ethnically diverse Tanzanian villages. We first demonstrate the vulnerability of aggregated data to

SUBMITTER: Lawson DW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4653144 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature