From Polygamy to Serial Monogamy: a Unified Theory of Marriage Institutions

David de la Croix

No 49, 2012 Meeting Papers from Society for Economic Dynamics

Abstract: We consider an economy populated by males and females, both rich and poor. The society has to choose one of the following marriage institutions: polygamy, strict monogamy, and serial monogamy (divorce and remarriage). Preferences are aggregated through a voting process. After having identified the conditions under which each of these equilibria exists, we show that a rise in the share of rich males can explain a change of regime from polygamy to monogamy. The introduction of serial monogamy follows from a further rise in either the share of rich males, or from an increase in the proportion of rich females. Strict monogamy is a prerequisite to serial monogamy, as it promotes more than polygamy the upward social mobility of females. These results also show that polygamy is compatible with democracy.

Date: 2012
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://red-files-public.s3.amazonaws.com/meetpapers/2012/paper_49.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: From Polygyny to Serial Monogamy: A Unified Theory of Marriage Institutions (2015)
Working Paper: From polygyny to serial monogamy: a unified theory of marriage institutions (2015)
Working Paper: From polygyny to serial monogamy: a unified theory of marriage institutions (2012)
Working Paper: From Polygyny to Serial Monogamy: a Unified Theory of Marriage Institutions (2012)
Working Paper: From Polygyny to Serial Monogamy: A Unified Theory of Marriage Institutions (2012)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:red:sed012:49

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in 2012 Meeting Papers from Society for Economic Dynamics Society for Economic Dynamics Marina Azzimonti Department of Economics Stonybrook University 10 Nicolls Road Stonybrook NY 11790 USA. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Christian Zimmermann ().