Editing Polygyny (section)

===Augmenting division of labor===
[[Ester Boserup]] was the first to propose that the high incidence of polygyny in sub-Saharan Africa is rooted in the sexual division of labor in [[hoe-farming]] and the large economic contribution of women.<ref name="goody" />{{sfn|Boserup|1970}}
 
{{Anthropology of kinship}}

In some regions of shifting cultivation where polygyny is most frequently recorded, labor is often starkly divided between genders. In many of these cases, the task of felling trees in preparation of new plots, the fencing of fields against wild animals, and sometimes the planting of crops, is usually done by men and older boys (along with hunting, fishing and the raising of livestock).<ref name="FB 1969">Guyer, Jane. (1991). "Female Farming in Anthropology and African History". ''Gender at the Crossroads of Knowledge: Feminist Anthropology in the postmodern Era''. Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press. pp. 260-261.</ref><ref name="Cornwall2005">{{cite book|author=Andrea Cornwall|title=Readings in Gender in Africa|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=INci71MNlhQC&pg=PA103|date=2005|publisher=Indiana University Press|isbn=978-0-253-34517-2|pages=103–110}}</ref> Wives, on the other hand, are responsible for other aspects of cultivating, food processing and providing meals and for performing domestic duties for the family. Boserup notes that though women's work comprises a larger percentage of tasks that form the basis of sub-Saharan life, women often do not receive the majority portion of the benefits that accompany economic and agricultural success.

{{Close relationships}}

An elderly cultivator, with several wives and likely several young male children, benefits from having a much larger workforce within his household. By the combined efforts of his young sons and young wives, he may gradually expand his cultivation and become more prosperous. A man with a single wife has less help in cultivation and is likely to have little or no help for felling trees. According to Boserup's historical data, women living in such a structure also welcome one or more co-wives to share with them the burden of daily labor. However, the second wife will usually do the most tiresome work, almost as if she were a servant to the first wife, and will be inferior to the first wife in status.{{sfn|Boserup|1970|pp=41–47}} A 1930s study of the [[Mende people|Mende]] in the West African state of Sierra Leone concluded that a plurality of wives is an agricultural asset, since a large number of women makes it unnecessary to employ wage laborers.{{sfn|Little|1967}} Polygyny is considered an economic advantage in many rural areas. In some cases, the economic role of the additional wife enables the husband to enjoy more leisure.{{sfn|Boserup|1970|pp=40–41}}

Anthropologist [[Jack Goody]]'s comparative study of marriage around the world, using the [[Human Relations Area Files|Ethnographic Atlas]], demonstrated a historical correlation between the practice of extensive [[shifting cultivation]] and polygyny in many Sub-Saharan African societies.<ref name=goody>{{cite book|last=Goody|first=Jack|title=Production and Reproduction: A Comparative Study of the Domestic Domain|date=1976|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge|pages=27–29}}</ref> Drawing on the work of [[Ester Boserup]], Goody notes that in some of the sparsely-populated regions where shifting cultivation takes place in Africa, much of the work is done by women. This favored polygynous marriages, in which men sought to monopolize the production of women "who are valued both as workers and as child bearers."

Goody, however, observes that the correlation is imperfect, and also describes more traditionally male-dominated though relatively extensive farming systems, such as those common in much of West Africa, particularly the [[savanna]] region, where more agricultural work is done by men, and polygamy is desired more for the production of male offspring whose labor in farming is valued.<ref>Goody, Jack. ''Polygyny, Economy and the Role of Women. In The Character of Kinship''. London: Cambridge University Press, 1973, p. 180–190.</ref>

Goody's observation regarding African male farming systems is discussed and supported by anthropologists Douglas R. White and Michael L. Burton in their article, "Causes of Polygyny: Ecology, Economy, Kinship, and Warfare",<ref name="white 1988">{{cite journal | last1=White | first1=Douglas | last2=Burton | first2=Michael | date=1988 | title=Causes of Polygyny: Ecology, Economy, Kinship, and Warfare |url= https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0468q4xq | journal=American Anthropologist | volume=90| issue=4| pages=871–887 | doi=10.1525/aa.1988.90.4.02a00060}}</ref>{{rp|884}} where the authors note: "Goody (1973) argues against the female contributions hypothesis. He notes Dorjahn's (1959) comparison of East and

West Africa, showing higher female agricultural contributions in East Africa and higher polygyny rates in West Africa, especially in the West African savanna, where one finds especially high male agricultural contributions. Goody says, "The reasons behind polygyny are sexual and reproductive rather than economic and productive" (1973:189), arguing that men marry polygynously to maximize their fertility and to obtain large households containing many young dependent males."<ref name="white 1988" />{{rp|873}}<ref name="White2">{{cite journal | vauthors=White DR, Burton ML, Dow MM| title=Sexual Division of Labor in African Agriculture: A Network Autocorrelation Analysis | journal = American Anthropologist | volume=83 | issue=4 | pages=824–849 | date=December 1981 | doi=10.1525/aa.1981.83.4.02a00040 | url= https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227632381 | doi-access=free }}</ref>

An analysis by James Fenske (2012) found that child mortality and ecologically-related economic shocks had a stronger association with rates of polygamy in Sub-Saharan Africa rather than female agricultural contributions (which are typically relatively small in the West African savanna and Sahel, where polygyny rates are higher), finding that polygyny rates decrease significantly in line with child mortality rates.<ref>{{Citation | last=Fenske | first=James | title=African Polygamy: Past and Present |url= https://www.economics.ox.ac.uk/materials/papers/12544/csae-wps-2012-20.pdf | publisher=Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford | pages=1–30 | date=November 2012 | access-date=2019-09-27 | archive-date=2017-09-22 | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20170922005828/https://www.economics.ox.ac.uk/materials/papers/12544/csae-wps-2012-20.pdf }}</ref>