The Utility and Disutility of Polygamy

THE UTILITY AND DISUTILITY OF POLYGAMY

by Martin Št?pán

Polygamy works just fine when the group’s strategy is to conquer other groups and take their women but in a society that is a closed system, there is a finite number of women and letting them naturally distribute in Pareto distribution will leave disenfranchised men with the only option of conquering men from their own society to have a chance at a woman of their own.

The parallel zero-sum game to his I can think of is land. If all land in the nation’s territory was owned by the few leaving most men without realistic chance to own any by legal means, they will go to war.