Polygamy, the Commodification of Women, and Underdevelopment
Name
polygamy-the-commodification-of-women-and-underdevelopment.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
1002.25 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
8d9f344568bfe0bb0fa705683bde84a0
Author(s)
Seligson, Daniel
McCants, Anne EC
Date Issued
2022
Journal
Social Science History
Publisher
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Citation
Seligson, Daniel and McCants, Anne EC. 2022. "Polygamy, the Commodification of Women, and Underdevelopment." Social Science History, 46 (1).
Version
Final published version
Abstract
AbstractFamily 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.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. History Section
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1017/SSH.2021.23
