Right to Health: Polygyny and De Facto Polygyny may Increase Women’s Vulnerability to HIV/AIDS in Tanzania

The world continues to faced many challenges both social and economic as a result of HIV/AIDS. Women in Tanzania and the world at large are among the most vulnerable population to HIV infection. Some of the communities to this day are starved of the critical information about the scourge as a result of the contradictions which emerge between the national laws (i.e., customary law) and international laws. This study aimed primarily at ascertaining the issues of whether polygynous marriage/small house are perceived to expose married women to the high risk of HIV/AIDS. Simple random sampling technique was used to select rural and urban married men/women, especially among those living in polygamous and monogamous marriages and unmarried women who are in relations with married men (small house) at Lushoto in Tanzania. The study noted that married women are at risk of HIV/AIDS when their husbands practice de facto polygyny. As a result of the legal disparities between international laws and national law (i.e., customary law), polygynous marriage/small house exposes married women to a high risk of HIV/AIDS. The international community needs to come up with a standpoint that compels member nations of different cultural practices to ensure that women are not exposed to HIV/AIDS. HIV/AIDS is a reality and dissemination of information to all people should be considered a human right regardless of the different cultural practices. To this end, thousands of married women in polygamous and monogamous marriages are at risk of the scourge in Tanzania in particular and the world in general. The world continues to faced many challenges both social and economic as a result of HIV/AIDS. Women in Tanzania and the world at large are among the most vulnerable population to HIV infection. Some of the communities to this day are starved of the critical information about the scourge as a result of the contradictions which emerge between the national laws (i.e., customary law) and international laws. This study aimed primarily at ascertaining the issues of whether polygynous marriage/small house are perceived to expose married women to the high risk of HIV/AIDS. Simple random sampling technique was used to select rural and urban married men/women, especially among those living in polygamous and monogamous marriages and unmarried women who are in relations with married men (small house) at Lushoto in Tanzania. The study noted that married women are at risk of HIV/AIDS when their husbands practice de facto polygyny. As a result of the legal disparities between international laws and national law (i.e., customary law), polygynous marriage/small house exposes married women to a high risk of HIV/AIDS. The international community needs to come up with a standpoint that compels member nations of different cultural practices to ensure that women are not exposed to HIV/AIDS. HIV/AIDS is a reality and dissemination of information to all people should be considered a human right regardless of the different cultural practices. To this end, thousands of married women in polygamous and monogamous marriages are at risk of the scourge in Tanzania in particular and the world in general.

Indigenous Polygyny in Dhofar. (Re-)Interpretations of Individual Options and Daring Delineations

Polygyny is widely practiced across Dhofar reflecting the resiliency of Islamic family law. However, as the country is accommodating transnational influences polygynous marital arrangements are undergoing changes. Drawing on qualitative data collected within a large-scale quantitative study comprising a sample of 1,192 respondents on polygyny in Dhofar 2004–2010, the entanglements between religious mores on and cultural practices of polygyny are discussed through individual case-work analysis. First, it is argued that polygynous marriage remains a pragmatic arrangement in the context of tribal relationships. Second, the tension in redefining gender roles is manifest primarily in this marital arrangement. Third, through cultural flow and technological, economic, and educational changes, re-interpretation of mating strategies are encompassing a slow shift from pragmatism to romanticism. The digital nature of communications and cultural identity acquisition in the twenty-first century continues to influence and guide the manifestations of change presented by the data that show the small but vital steps being made by men and women that are redefining and reinterpreting polygyny and society as a whole.

Greater wealth inequality, less polygyny: rethinking the polygyny threshold model

Monogamy appears to have become the predominant human mating system with the emergence of highly unequal agricultural populations that replaced relatively egalitarian horticultural populations, challenging the conventional idea—based on the polygyny threshold model—that polygyny should be positively associated with wealth inequality. To address this polygyny paradox, we generalize the standard polygyny threshold model to a mutual mate choice model predicting the fraction of women married polygynously. We then demonstrate two conditions that are jointly sufficient to make monogamy the predominant marriage form, even in highly unequal societies. We assess if these conditions are satisfied using individual-level data from 29 human populations. Our analysis shows that with the shift to stratified agricultural economies: (i) the population frequency of relatively poor individuals increased, increasing wealth inequality, but decreasing the frequency of individuals with sufficient wealth to secure polygynous marriage, and (ii) diminishing marginal fitness returns to additional wives prevent extremely wealthy men from obtaining as many wives as their relative wealth would otherwise predict. These conditions jointly lead to a high population-level frequency of monogamy.

KEBIJAKAN KRIMINAL TERHADAP TINDAK PIDANA POLIGAMI DIKAITKAN DENGAN SISTEM HUKUM PERKAWINAN INDONESIA

Law No. 1 of 1974 on Marriage basically adhere to the principle of monogamy. Although not essential to the principle of monogamy, there is still a polygamist who often take shortcuts to legalize polygynous marriage. Polygamous marriage act is a violation of Law No. 1 Year 1974 on Marriage, and Government Regulation No. 9 of 1975 on implementation of Law No. 1 Year 1974 on Marriage, although the threat of criminal sanction only published in the Government Regulation. Another case in the Criminal Code (KUHP), the sanction of polygamy as criminal action regulated in Article 279. Is the threat of criminal sanctions contained in the Criminal Code and Regulation No. 9 of 1975 in line with the values and ideals of community law in Indonesia? The purpose of this study is to determine the applicative policy for polygamy as criminal offense in marriages in Indonesia’s legal system and to formulate the concept of criminalisation policy for polygamous marriage act as criminal offense in the Indonesia’s legal system of marriage for the future. This is due to criminal sanctions in Article 279 of the Criminal Code and Law No. 1 of 1974 and Article 45 of Government Regulation Number 9 Year 1975, there is still a legal synchrony. The concept of future criminal polygamy criminal policies should apply the principle of ultimum remedium otherwise known as the “last drug”. Whatever the reason for the imposition of criminal punishment will still have a negative effect on the perpetrator and his family and will cause sociological and psychological implications if criminal sanctions are applied. In the legal state of Pancasila especially for the Muslims, the concept of marriage is a worship then it must be fostered, if there are deviations should not be destroyed by a criminal threat. Therefore, to overcome the criminal act of polygamy the need of a non penal criminal policy means, that is prevention without punishment.

No evidence that polygynous marriage is a harmful cultural practice in northern Tanzania

Polygyny is cross-culturally common and a topic of considerable academic and policy interest, often deemed a harmful cultural practice serving the interests of men contrary to those of women and children. Supporting this view, large-scale studies of national African demographic surveys consistently demonstrate that poor child health outcomes are concentrated in polygynous households. Negative population-level associations between polygyny and well-being have also been reported, consistent with the hypothesis that modern transitions to socially imposed monogamy are driven by cultural group selection. We challenge the consensus view that polygyny is harmful, drawing on multilevel data from 56 ethnically diverse Tanzanian villages. We first demonstrate the vulnerability of aggregated data to confounding between ecological and individual determinants of health; while across villages polygyny is associated with poor child health and low food security, such relationships are absent or reversed within villages, particularly when children and fathers are coresident. We then provide data indicating that the costs of sharing a husband are offset by greater wealth (land and livestock) of polygynous households. These results are consistent with models of polygyny based on female choice. Finally, we show that village-level negative associations between polygyny prevalence, food security, and child health are fully accounted for by underlying differences in ecological vulnerability (rainfall) and socioeconomic marginalization (access to education). We highlight the need for improved, culturally sensitive measurement tools and appropriate scales of analysis in studies of polygyny and other purportedly harmful practices and discuss the relevance of our results to theoretical accounts of marriage and contemporary population policy.

Polygyny without wealth: popularity in gift games predicts polygyny in BaYaka Pygmies

The occurrence of polygynous marriage in hunter–gatherer societies, which do not accumulate wealth, remains largely unexplored since resource availability is dependent on male hunting capacity and limited by the lack of storage. Hunter–gatherer societies offer the greatest insight in to human evolution since they represent the majority of our species' evolutionary history. In order to elucidate the evolution of hunter–gatherer polygyny, we study marriage patterns of BaYaka Pygmies. We investigate (i) rates of polygyny among BaYaka hunter–gatherers; (ii) whether polygyny confers a fitness benefit to BaYaka men; (iii) in the absence of wealth inequalities, what are the alternative explanations for polygyny among the BaYaka. To understand the latter, we explore differences in phenotypic quality (height and strength), and social capital (popularity in gift games). We find polygynous men have increased reproductive fitness; and that social capital and popularity but not phenotypic quality might have been important mechanisms by which some male hunter–gatherers sustained polygynous marriages before the onset of agriculture and wealth accumulation.

The puzzle of monogamous marriage

The anthropological record indicates that approximately 85 per cent of human societies have permitted men to have more than one wife (polygynous marriage), and both empirical and evolutionary considerations suggest that large absolute differences in wealth should favour more polygynous marriages. Yet, monogamous marriage has spread across Europe, and more recently across the globe, even as absolute wealth differences have expanded. Here, we develop and explore the hypothesis that the norms and institutions that compose the modern package of monogamous marriage have been favoured by cultural evolution because of their group-beneficial effects—promoting success in inter-group competition. In suppressing intrasexual competition and reducing the size of the pool of unmarried men, normative monogamy reduces crime rates, including rape, murder, assault, robbery and fraud, as well as decreasing personal abuses. By assuaging the competition for younger brides, normative monogamy decreases (i) the spousal age gap, (ii) fertility, and (iii) gender inequality. By shifting male efforts from seeking wives to paternal investment, normative monogamy increases savings, child investment and economic productivity. By increasing the relatedness within households, normative monogamy reduces intra-household conflict, leading to lower rates of child neglect, abuse, accidental death and homicide. These predictions are tested using converging lines of evidence from across the human sciences.

Marriage and Slavery in Early Islam

Kecia Ali has already acquired a reputation as one of the most important English-language scholars of Islam and gender of her generation. Her latest book will do nothing to detract from that reputation, and may well solidify her asthe leading scholar of her generation of Islam and gender in the United States.While the title suggests that its contents exhibit a parallel concernwith slavery and marriage, the work is really devoted to showing how theformally separate legal institutions of marriage and slave holding shapedand were shaped by each institution ‒ with their respective doctrines attimes converging, and while at other times, the doctrines diverged. Thebook consists of an introduction, five substantial chapters, and a conclusion.The chapters cover the formation of a marriage and its similarities toand distinctions from concubinage, the only other legal relationship thatmade sexual relations licit. The second chapter treats the interdependencyof claims within marriage, while pointing out the gendered nature of theclaims particular to the husband and the wife. The third chapter focuses onthe wife’s legal claims to her husband’s companionship, particularly in thecontext of a polygynous marriage. The fourth chapter deals with the variousmodes of dissolving a marriage in Islamic law and compares them witha master’s power to manumit his slave. The fifth chapter compares andcontrasts marriage and slavery as particular modes of ownership (milk) ...