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Research Suggests Polygamous Men Live Longer
Calopteryx writes "Want to live a little longer? Get a second wife. A study reported in New Scientist suggests that men from polygamous cultures outlive those from monogamous ones. After accounting for socioeconomic differences, men aged over 60 from 140 countries that practice polygamy to varying degrees lived on average 12% longer than men from 49 mostly monogamous nations."
I would have thought having multiple sets of in-laws would shorten your life expectancy through frustration alone...
Q. "Why do married men die before their wives?" A. "Because they want to"
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
I wonder if serial polyagmy has any of the same benefits? I am sure I would not have lived this long if still with the ex.
In seriousness, I'm not surprised. From living this way for a while, I see a lot less stress on all parties most of the time. When there is stress, it's easier to deal with as you have a stronger close-knit support structure.
...and I'll even share! I'm all for watching girl-on-girl action!
That being said, as much as my wife and I both love naked chicks, I can't imagine being married to more than one woman, let alone surviving longer from it. One woman is enough to kill me.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Men who are comfortable having multiple wives have no problems telling the in-laws to stuff it.
The most obvious explanation is that only the "fittest" men get to have multiple wives in the first place. They'll tend to be richer, and rich men live longer. They said they accounted for socioeconomic differences, but might it also be that physically fit men lived longer and attracted more wives?
I'm sure they tried to control for that and a host of other factors, but I'd really need to see the original paper to understand their work.
A quick check shows Hugh Hefner at 82, that's proof enough for me.
Now if I could just convince my wife...
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
often practice warfare to an unusual degree. High numbers of young male deaths leads to a surplus of marriageable women -- including widows. Polygamy allows the fertility rate to compensate, among other things.
It follows that while the cost of war is borne most by the dead, any potential benefits must be shared disproportionately more by the survivors.
By a similar logic, I'd bet that the countries in question have a much higher mortality rate for young men from all causes, and that survivors into old age posses, disproportionately, social fitness. In other words the poor die young and the rich live longer. This may also be exacerbated when you look at certain small and exceptional countries, such as Brunei.
In any case, there is only so far clever juxtaposition of gross numbers can get you. To really understand data, you have to disaggregate it, which is probably not possible in the datasets they have. Overall male life expectancy is a better measure of male health, not the survival rates of those who have already reached advanced age. That's practically asking to have your data confounded.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Correlation is not causation. There may just be something in common with longer lifespans and polygamy, like hormones, lifestyle, attitude... hundreds of things.
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
Another reply here had a link to a study about how humans almost died out 70k years ago. Boring, but linked to THAT was a theory that the reason men generally live *shorter* lives than women was polygamy. According to the theory, having multiple reproductive partners (a harem) tends to produce larger, stronger, but more short lived males: since it takes a lot of strength to fend off the other males from taking your harem, but it happens eventually anyway, so why live a long life?
Combined with this study, one comes to the conclusion that studs outlive wimps, but women outlive them all.
Bitches.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Since no one here has a even a girlfriend, I would say this is neither news for nerds or stuff that matters. :(
Sometimes, life itself is sarcasm...
I do a "science news of the day" at dinner with the wife and kids, picking out the best science news stories I read. Needless to say, this one just shot to the top of the list.
"But honey, it's for my health!"
I have only one question: what is the list of polygamous nations?
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
On a short-term basis, it might be true, but on the evolutionary scale, polygamy seems to have the opposite effect. at least this article suggests so: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/10/17/scisex117.xml
AltSlashdot. Because f'k the beta
Confucius say "Man who hosts two women under one roof sleep in doghouse."
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
The selection bias of polygamous men (mentioned already here) for richer and healthier persons over those who die younger likely explains the differences enough, but, in addition, it's long been known that widowers have a reduced lifespan. It's likely that the survival of the second wife protects against that reduction somewhat.
They live longer because they work hard, eat well, and don't watch much TV.
TV is the source of gov't manipulation, and by extension, satan. And while polyg's don't mind defrauding the welfare system and getting money FROM the gov't, they distance themselves thoroughly from gov't control.
They also have the most well-behaved kids you will EVER see in a Walmart. Make Hamish kids look like the Courtney Love.
THL phish sticks
May shorten your life expectancy.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
She guaranteed me that sleeping with other women would have the opposite effect on my longevity.
I read the internet for the articles.
I suspect that people who are happy with their lives in general will live longer.
There are studies that show that married people live longer than those who are not.
There are studies that claim that happily married people live longer than those who are not happy in their marriage.
What makes men happy?
Being a guy I know I am happier when I get more opportunity for some "good" lovin' from my woman.
Do you see where I'm going with this? It's all about what makes you happy (imho).
Now then, the next question is: What makes women happy?
Figure that out and your onto something.
It's the type of woman. These men aren't married to several typical American women. An American man with several wives would have a chorus of nagging behind his every move, and that's not counting the fun that happens when the wives decide to "gang divorce" him and go discover themselves.
Why was I not invited to participate in this study? No matter which test group you are assigned to, you end up getting tail. I happen to be a strong proponent of getting tail.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
....that if my husband tries to have another wife he most certainly will not live longer. He might very well not live to see another sunrise. Now, when is the study starting to see how long women with multiple male partners live?
I dream of a better world... one in which chickens can cross roads without their motives being questioned.
Getting a decent shag out of a man is hard enough without having to share him with other women.
On the other hand, I have heard the following saying:
"Most women would rather have one-tenth of a first-rate man than all of a second rate one."
Females tend to be very attuned to the capabilities of their mates, and let's be clear that while women may have been effectively chattel, you cannot have that situation without at least some (perhaps unconscious) complicity from them. Females certainly have their own will and if, as a group, they were resistant to sharing a male, you better believe that they could seriously curtail that practice over time, even if they lack external trappings of power.
I think the modern tendency for a woman to have only one man is not that women have been "freed" so much as many *men* today have the freedom to live their lives in such a way that they have opportunities themselves. There is significantly less warfare in developed countries and more education. That means that any given man can be a suitable candidate for any woman. Obviously, allowing women to have more choice in the matter is important in this trend, but there is nothing to say that a free woman wouldn't choose to be a co-wife, given a certain environment like that of less developed countries. The patriarchal details and terminology may change, but the reality may not.
Now then, the next question is: What makes women happy?
Figure that out and your onto something.
More like "figure that out, and she'll change her mind"
Just kidding, honey! Honest.
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
Well, Ernest Borgnine says I only need to masturbate a lot to live a long time. And I believe him because he was in both "Escape from New York" *AND* "Baseketball."
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Consider the following: every culture that practices polygamy (actually polygyny, multiple wives, as opposed to polyandry, which would be multiple husbands) has to do something about the extra males. Each and every society like this, without exception, has been AMAZINGLY misogynistic - and that's continued today in the modern Muslim and Fundamentalist LDS "polygamist" cultures.
When you have a surplus of males, your option is pretty much either (a) kick them out into the world (what the FLDS do) or (b) get them killed off in warring, tribal or otherwise (which is what much of Africa and Middle Eastern muslim societies do).
If you get to be old in such cultures, you're wealthy. In fact, wealth is more an indicator of your life expectancy, in any culture.
However, now compare those cultures across the board. If you're in Europe or in America/Canada or another westernized nation, it's relatively easy to get past 60 - after all, you have the free health care systems and welfare setups to rely on.
On the flipside, look at the polygamist societies - in Middle Eastern/African muslim societies, those who aren't going to reach 60 (read: the poor) usually kill themselves off FAR faster in various tribal conflicts and wars. In the FLDS, tracking down their "lost boys" usually winds up giving you an example of kids who have the world yanked from under them and wind up becoming drug addicts and worse because they've been taught from day one that the "outside world" was out to kill them anyways for being FLDS.
What you have there isn't a real phenomenon. "Post hoc, ergo propter hoc" is a classic mistake that is made by this fatally flawed "study."
Any reliable wife will tell you that what she needs most on any given day is a wife. We compensate for monogamy by hiring wives for our wives; house cleaners, babysitters, daycare, diaper service, food delivery. Also, by living (well in the US) in a throw-away technical society we have striped away the need to make or repair clothes (sewing), prepare complex meals (eating out), corresponding (email, phone) and many other things that women "had" to do or felt needed to be done in a proper society.
My wife and I, married almost 14 years and with two kids, have discussed "getting" (not sure how to put it) a second wife. She's not opposed to it, understands it completely, but we haven't had a chance to try it yet. Since we live sustainably and don't take advantage of the many means to rent a wife, we don't really have much choice except to look for help. If you are going to use a woman that way, then you should support her, I feel. Renting is just a way to use something and throw it away, in the end. And paying for services that a woman could do herself is expensive the realm of the rich.
I don't know how having two wives would make me live longer as such, never gave it any thought, but it would reduce how much I worry about our family economy if I had two wives working as sisters to hold everything together, get back to simpler ways of doing things by hand and without technology. Homeschooling, food preparation and gardening are suddenly easier. My wife works so hard... she needs a wife.
[PS: Some will chorus "then help her do her work you smuck!" To which I reply "Ah, but I'm the one building the house." You see, when you really adopt the idea of do-it-yerself you bite off this enormous load of work that nobody even thinks about any more.]
=^..^= all your rodent are belong to us
Remember, you're going to have four women who are all menstruating at the same time - I think that would have some negative effect ;-)
McClintock effect
The McClintock effect, also known as menstrual synchrony or the dormitory effect, is a theory that proposes that the menstrual cycles of women who live together (such as in prisons, convents, bordellos, or dormitories) tend to become synchronized over time.
It is thought to be analogous to the Whitten effect, which is the synchronization of the estrous cycle and has been noted in small animals such as mice and guinea pigs. In contrast to the Whitten effect, which is driven by male pheromones, the McClintock effect is postulated to have only female pheromonal involvement.
Woopty Doo Basil, what does it all mean?!
Read the summary of the study's conclusion again. What the study claims to demonstrate isn't that polygamists live longer than other men in their own society; what it demonstrates is that in societies where a minority of the men have multiple wives, the mean longevity of all men is longer.
Note the following two things that follow from this:
The second point I just made is at odds with what you're telling us here:
For this to be consistent with the results of the study, the negative effect of such early deaths on average longevity must be smaller than the positive effect that the polygamists have on the same statistic. Which suggests you're totally overblowing this by reasoning on the basis of stereotypes.
Are you adequate?
By this logic, the average Slashdot reader, having *no* wife (except perhaps battery powered ones), will die at the age of 47.5, surrounded by manga, pizza boxes, O'Reilly books and WoW paraphernalia.
Better get ours while we still can -- we're doomed.
is any analysis of whether the more long-lived men in a polygamous society are those with multiple wives, or those with no wives.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
"...men aged over 60 from 140 countries that practice polygamy to varying degrees lived on average 12% longer than men from 49 mostly monogamous nations."
Nations that mostly practice polygamy are also mostly desert cultures. So you could also word those findings as "...men aged over 60 from 140 countries that have alot of sand lived on average 12% longer than men from 49 mostly non-sandy nations."
Another possible confounding factor: Polygamy is often associated with religions (Mormon offshoots, Islam, ...) whose practitioners also have less exposure to a number of biochemical health risks due to religious prohibitions or discouragements: Alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, other psychotropic drugs, pork-borne diseases, ...
Other aspects of their cultural or religious practices (such as their legal system, requirements to self-suppor and, support the family rather than depending on government charity, individually defend self, home, family, and/or society against human predators, etc.) may also reduce risk - from criminal activity, lack or mistiming of acquisition of important resources, etc.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
It is for these reasons, especially for reason number 2, which 'fundementalist' Muslims believe is the quickest route to hell should you screw up that polygamy is actually not that widely practised in proportion to just having one spouse. Now, compare this to the de facto polygamy that is practised in the Western world and see who is mysogynistic.
Women aren't happy unless you are miserable.
Oppsie, typo. Fixed it for you
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
A doctor, lawyer, and programmer are discussing the pros and cons of polygamy.
The doctor says, "Nah, that's not for me! Think of all the stress, one wife's tough enough on the ticker, two would kill me!"
The lawyer says "No, thanks. What if one wife wanted to divorce, and the other didn't, what happens to the property? How does the estate get handled? That, and I think it might be illegal, but don't quote me."
The programmer jams his glasses into his nose and says "What do you mean, guys, this would be great! I'd tell the first wife that I was with the second wife, then I'd tell the second wife I was with the first, and then, I could go read Slashdot in peace!"
I can't resist the challenge of classifying the duties of 13 wives:
Wife#1 - Head Wife , as in lead wife, the matriarch of the harem. For head wife, see #7
Wife#2 - Sports equipment maintenance: cleans balls, buffs club heads, wipes shafts, etc. For similar duties see wife #7
Wife#3 - Food servicing: food prep for friends, beer fetcher, pizza gofer, etc.
Wife#3 - Personal comfort: Fanning, AC/heat control, recliner inclination monitor, foot massage, etc.
Wife#4 - Communications: answering phone with excuses as to why husband can't answer, getting the door, etc.
Wife#5 - Media control: Monitoring location of all TV and video remote controls, summarizing viewing habits of husband and printing list of shows for him, etc.
Wife#6 - Cleaning: Washing, ironing, vacuuming, etc.
Wife#7 - Head Wife - oh yeah!
Wife#s8,9,10 - Bedtime playmates, multiple partners to alleviate boredom.
Wife#11 - Backup wife for positions 1-10
Wife#12 - Secondary (redundant) backup wife.
Wife#13 - I have no idea why he would need a 13th wife! What a self-centered A-hole!
The lives of men with many wives only SEEM longer...
IMHO everyone seems to have missed the most glaring flaw in the study. 140 countries that 'practice polygamy'? Really? I strongly doubt that there are 140 countries where the number of polygamists is statistically significant and is large enough to cause a measurable effect on a property of the average male. And only 49 'mostly monogamous' countries? Rubbish.
The problem seems to be the 'monogamy scale' mentioned in the article. Perhaps they considered every country where polygamy in some form is legal as ones that 'practice polygamy'. For example in India, polygamy is legal (only) for Muslims, but there are so few Muslims that practice it that it cannot possibly have any effect on the average male. So this correlation observed among countries that 'practice polygamy' (which in reality just have a tiny causally insignificant number of polygamists) is probably just noise.
Mortality rates for married vs. single are based on people born in the 1930s or even 1920s. For those age cohorts, only the very sickly or very ugly did not get married, it was standard issue social behavior for their time. Correlation != causation, as always. Being married did not make people healthy, it was the other way around. Now, look at people today and it's obvious to a casual observer that a whole different dynamic is at work. The data backs it up: not only are the people who stay single happier ( http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/women-are-happiest-with-first-love-and-men-with-serial-monogamy-study-finds-577451.html ) but they don't get as fat as married people (http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2007-10-22-marriage-weight_N.htm ). Again, this is stating the obvious for any single guy or gal who's watched misery and widening waistlines begin to make their mark on newly married couples after about 2 years. Marriage not only makes people miserable, it will probably shorten your life if you're born after 1970.
In societies where women are not even meant to be seen let alone heard can clearly live a far more relaxed live with more women waiteing on the men.
But in the western world woman presume the dominant role within the house (most men beg their wives to let them buy that new PC, TV, etc..) more than one woman would mean more than one dominant control freak in the house.
Polygamy in the west is a terrible idea. I have no frigging idea how to keep up with all the demands of one woman (my wife who's reading this now agrees that I'm clueless and she feels it's for my own good) having a second woman demanding I do this, that, or the other thing would kill me in a year or two.
P.S. - My wife wishes that I relay that men are good for three things. Opening jars, killing bugs and changing tires. She says, the other things she can buy in a store with or without batteries.
With the benefit of the book right in front of me I can confirm that what it describes is referred to as polygamy in the text, but is actually polygyny.
However, polygyny is a a subset of polygamy, and polyandry is rare enough that in demotic English polygamy almost always means polygyny.
Nevertheless, your pedantry is acknowledged.
All intents and purposes. Not intensive purposes.
This seems extremely flawed. If you are comparing longevity among those who already reached 60, the first question I would ask is what are the numbers for everyone? I am betting they are reversed when you include all those who didn't make it to 60.
First many of these countries identified are probably harsher environments, then you create additional pressures by having polygamy, which means much higher mate competition pressures. If one guy has 4 wives, 3 guys get no wives.
So you have a survival of the fittest regime, that is likely killing off a lot of the weaker samples early. Then you compare the 60+ year old survivors to average 60 year olds in non polygamous societies (likely the west) where most of those weaker individuals make it to 60.
Can we have a: "Well Duh!"
Someone got paid for this?
fortune -m "get some work done"
(men-women)
A sociologist, a psychologist, and a engineer were discussing the
consequences and implications of a married man's having a mistress. The
sociologist's opinion was that it is absolutely and categorically unforgivable
for a married man to forfeit the bond of matrimony, and engage in such lowly
and lustful pursuits.
The psychologist's opinion was that although morally reprehensible,
if a man MUST have a mistress to achieve his full potential as a human being,
then -- well -- he may go ahead and choose to have a mistress, as long as he
is considerate enough to keep this secret from his wife.
The engineer then interjected: "I also believe that, if necessary,
a married man is entitled to a mistress. However, I do not see why the
affair should be concealed from the wife. On the contrary, if the affair
is out in the open, then on Friday evenings he may tell his wife that he
is going to see his mistress, tell his mistress that he is going to be with
his wife, then go to his office and get some work done!"