| Abstract: |
Standard economic theories of household formation predict the rise of
institutionalized polygyny in response to increased resource inequality among
men. We propose a theory, within the framework of a matching model of
marriage, in which, in some cases, institutionalized monogamy prevails, even
when resources are unequally distributed, as a result of agricultural
externalities that increase the presence of pair-bonding hormones. Within
marriage, hormone levels contribute to the formation of the marital pair bond,
the strength of which determines a man's willingness to invest in his wife's
children. These pair bonds are reinforced through physical contact between the
man and his wife and can be amplified by externalities produced by certain
production technologies. Both the presence of additional wives and the absence
of these externalities reduce the strength of the marital bond and, where the
fitness of a child is increasing in paternal investment, reduce a woman's
expected lifetime fertility. Multiple equilibria in terms of the dominant form
of marriage (for example, polygyny or monogamy) are possible, if the surplus
to a match is a function of reproductive success as well as material income.
Using evidence from the Standard Cross Cultural Sample and Murdock's
Ethnographic Atlas, we find that agricultural production externalities that
affect neurological pair-bonding incentives significantly reduce the tendency
to polygyny, even when resource inequality is present. |
| Keywords: |
Oxytocin, Vasopressin, Neurohormones, Marriage, Monogamy, Polygamy, Development of Institutions, Family structure |