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beccastareyesAn article on polyandry came across my feed today. Basically it mentions a paper that came out re-evaluating how common polyandry (one wife, multiple husbands) was in modern and historical societies: mostly showing that, contrary to 'the common wisdom' it happened in more places than just 'a part of Tibet where land is scarse, so often brothers marry the same woman so the family doesn't have to split the land'. (Also, it looks like one of the co-authors was a University of Nebraska anthropology prof -- go big red!)
The article notes that polyandry in societies are one alternative when for some reason the sex ratio becomes skewed towards more adult men, and in societies with little class structure (because I gather patrilineal inheritance matters less). And it made me nostalgic.
When I was in high school, I read a lot of 'classic SF' and that included Robert Heinlein. One of my favorites was The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Now Heinlein can be Problematic with a capital P, but he was the first one to introduce me to the idea that human culture is really, really fluid: that things like, say, family structure change depending on what families need to do in an environment. Heinlein, through his mouthpiece character*, pointed out that polyandry was common on the Moon due to... well, the fact it started as a prison colony with skewed sex ratios even allowing for the children born there, and that having multiple spouses in general helped make up for the fact few first-generation loonies had kin on the Moon and the Moon had little in the way of formal institutions like a social safety net. So, because you couldn't rely on your biological family or the government, marriage became not only a symbolic bond and a method to protect children (if you wanted them), but provided a great deal of economic security by having a number of working spouses, who might hold large property (like a farm or business) in common.
Basically, it spelled out a lesson for both SF&F reading and in the real world: humans create things like marriages and governments and churches and card-playing clubs to take care of some need (from 'care for me if I fall ill' to 'find a fourth for bridge'). These things can't be static when the culture around them changes.
(I also remember someone (I think it was one of the podcasters on Galactic Suburbia) talking about... I think, Downton Abbey recently. It was a quote about how in the feudal days, the aristocracy served the role of a trained military. Once nations developed standing armies, the aristocracy were the educated class, so could be drafted into government. As the middle class advanced and became just as educated, the aristocracy no longer served a real function and that the podcaster could feel one of the characters in Downton Abbey realizing that his class had been a parasite on society for around a century now...)
* You get used to a character like this in his books.
The article notes that polyandry in societies are one alternative when for some reason the sex ratio becomes skewed towards more adult men, and in societies with little class structure (because I gather patrilineal inheritance matters less). And it made me nostalgic.
When I was in high school, I read a lot of 'classic SF' and that included Robert Heinlein. One of my favorites was The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Now Heinlein can be Problematic with a capital P, but he was the first one to introduce me to the idea that human culture is really, really fluid: that things like, say, family structure change depending on what families need to do in an environment. Heinlein, through his mouthpiece character*, pointed out that polyandry was common on the Moon due to... well, the fact it started as a prison colony with skewed sex ratios even allowing for the children born there, and that having multiple spouses in general helped make up for the fact few first-generation loonies had kin on the Moon and the Moon had little in the way of formal institutions like a social safety net. So, because you couldn't rely on your biological family or the government, marriage became not only a symbolic bond and a method to protect children (if you wanted them), but provided a great deal of economic security by having a number of working spouses, who might hold large property (like a farm or business) in common.
Basically, it spelled out a lesson for both SF&F reading and in the real world: humans create things like marriages and governments and churches and card-playing clubs to take care of some need (from 'care for me if I fall ill' to 'find a fourth for bridge'). These things can't be static when the culture around them changes.
(I also remember someone (I think it was one of the podcasters on Galactic Suburbia) talking about... I think, Downton Abbey recently. It was a quote about how in the feudal days, the aristocracy served the role of a trained military. Once nations developed standing armies, the aristocracy were the educated class, so could be drafted into government. As the middle class advanced and became just as educated, the aristocracy no longer served a real function and that the podcaster could feel one of the characters in Downton Abbey realizing that his class had been a parasite on society for around a century now...)
* You get used to a character like this in his books.
