Monogamy and polygyny in Southeast Arnhem land: Male coercion and female choice

Abstract

We discuss the female choice and male coercion models of polygyny in light of women's reproductive histories from an Australian Aboriginal community in Southeast Arnhem Land. We reject the female choice model not only because these women seem to have had little choice in their marriages, but also because lifetime reproductive success for women in polygynous marriages was significantly lower than for those in monogamous marriages. Although our data are consistent with the male coercion model, we assert that this model is incomplete because it makes no predictions about the alternative strategies available to women who find themselves unable to maximize numerical measures of reproductive success, nor does it accommodate our finding that in many respects sororal and nonsororal polygyny are as different from each other as they are from monogamy. We discuss the differences among the three marriage types and suggest that: (a) sororally polygynous women may be better able to maximize measures of offspring reproductive value than nonsororally polygynous women and (b) at least in this Aboriginal community, sororal polygyny may have been the optimal compromise between male and female reproductive interests.