From Caroline Dumonteil
Laura Fortunato and Marco Archetti have created a mathematical model suggesting that “monogamous marriage [can be] a better strategy for men as well as for women” (9 January, p 13). They argue that “social monogamy is not inevitable” but arises in agricultural societies where men wish to prevent subdividing landholdings among their heirs.
This model includes the assumption that “women in early agrarian cultures did not provide much in the way of material resources”. However, in agricultural economies women could be considered a resource because of the food and offspring they produce on plots of land allocated by their husbands. In such societies it would therefore be in the man’s interests to have more than one wife and his role would be to provide protection for his family. This system still exists in parts of rural Africa, where women produce most of the food but a husband’s death can deprive them of land and leave them and their children destitute.
Montigny sur Loing, France
