Twin-killing in some traditional societies: an economic perspective

Andrés Marroquín () and Colleen Haight
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Andrés Marroquín: Universidad Francisco Marroquín, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas
Colleen Haight: San José State University

Journal of Bioeconomics, 2017, vol. 19, issue 3, No 1, 279 pages

Abstract: Abstract Historically, some societies around the world killed newborn twins, though the practice was forsaken in the early twentieth century. Anthropologists have proposed different theses: (1) the delivery of twins occurred when the mother cheated on her husband, or committed a great sin, and killing the twins was the penalty, (2) twin-killing was done to assert that human beings were different from animals among which multiple births in the same delivery were seen, (3) twins brought a dilemma to the kinship structure of societies and to cope with it different rules were adopted, twin-killing being the extreme one, (4) twin-killing was a means to face resource stress. We argue that although those interpretations are useful, we can improve the understanding of that phenomenon by adding an identity economics model, where twins are a taboo. Identity economics helps us explain the persistence of the practice and its eventual decline. We make our case with examples from the Igbo of Nigeria.

Keywords: Twins; Economics of religion; Taboos; Institutions; Identity; Culture; Igbo (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B15 B52 Z12 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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DOI: 10.1007/s10818-017-9249-8

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