Reply to Mealey and Young

Abstract

The first of Mealey and Young’s points was acknowledged in the paper on which they’ve commented. That the sample used was small is obvious : the analysis was intended to be “preliminary.” As pointed out, “The sample is, like the HRAF and Ethnographic Atlas and subsets of them , ajudgmental one , and a very small one as well. Inferences, therefore, should not at this point be extended beyond the societies described” (Betzig 1982; p. 210). Neither a Pearson Product Moment correlation statistic, nor any other statistic, has much meaning given such a disclaimer, other than to prompt or put off a further investigation of the problem. These results hare since been retested on a larger sample (Betzig 1983, in press). A reanalysis of the relationships among hierarchy, despotism, and polygyny (group size was not considered) on data from 104 societies has strongly confirmed the findings of the earlier study. The thrust of the rest of Mealey and Young’s remarks is that it is demographically impossible for any man in a group of less than 50 to enjoy more than 100 simultaneous conjugal unions. This point is well taken. Mealey and Young, however, take the argument steps further, and suggest that men in groups of 50-500 and 50020,000 cannot possibly have more than 10 or more than 100 such unions, respectively. This isn’t necessarily so. In, for example, a society made up of as few as 55 individuals, given a generous assumption that three fifths of them are not yet marriageable (i.e, under 20 or 25 years old), and given a roughly equal adult sex ratio, 11 women of marriageable age should be available. It is, then, demographically possible for a man, even in a small society of 50 to 500 mem-