Steven Pinker -- How the Mind Works - Hampshire High Italian ...

478 I HOW THE MIND WORKS. . . Antipolygamy laws are a textbook example of the theory of cartels.Producers, initially competitive, gather together in a conspiracyagainst the public or, more specifically, against their customers. Theyagree that each firm will restrict its output in an attempt to keep priceshigh. But a high price invites cheating, in the sense that each firm seeksto expand its own output beyond what is allowable under the agreement.Eventually, the cartel crumbles unless it is enforced by legal sanctions,and even then violations are legion.That story, told in every economics textbook, is also the story ofmale producers in the romance industry. Initially fiercely competitive,they gather together in a conspiracy against their "customers"—thewomen to whom they offer their hands in marriage. The conspiracy consistsof an agreement under which each man restricts his romanticendeavors in an attempt to increase the bargaining position of men ingeneral. But the improved position of men invites cheating, in the sensethat each man tries to court more women than allowed under the agreement.The cartel survives only because it is enforced by legal sanctions,and even so violations are legion.Legal monogamy historically has been an agreement between moreand less powerful men, not between men and women. Its aim is not somuch to exploit the customers in the romance industry (women) as tominimize the costs of competition among the producers (men). Underpolygyny, men vie for extraordinary Darwinian stakes—many wives versusnone—and the competition is literally cutthroat. Many homicidesand most tribal wars are directly or indirectly about competition forwomen. Leaders have outlawed polygyny when they needed less powerfulmen as allies and when they needed their subjects to fight an enemyinstead of fighting one another. Early Christianity appealed to, poor menpartly because the promise of monogamy kept them in the marriagegame, and in societies since, egalitarianism and monogamy go togetheras naturally as despotism and polygyny.Even today, inequality has allowed a kind of polygyny to flourish.Wealthy men support a wife and a mistress, or divorce their wives attwenty-year intervals and pay them alimony and child support while marryingyounger women. The journalist Robert Wright has speculated thateasy divorce and remarriage, like overt polygyny, increases violence.Women of childbearing age are monopolized by well-to-do men, and theshortage of potential wives trickles down to the lower strata, forcingthe poorest young men into desperate competition.