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Research Suggests Polygamous Men Live Longer
Posted by
timothy
on Wednesday August 20, @02:23PM
from the depends-which-part-of-utah dept.
from the depends-which-part-of-utah dept.
Calopteryx writes "Want to live a little longer? Get a second wife. A study reported in New Scientist suggests that men from polygamous cultures outlive those from monogamous ones. After accounting for socioeconomic differences, men aged over 60 from 140 countries that practice polygamy to varying degrees lived on average 12% longer than men from 49 mostly monogamous nations."
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Possible Monogamy Gene Found In People 333 comments
Calopteryx sends in a New Scientist summary of research from Sweden pointing toward the existence of a gene that influences monogamy in men. (The article doesn't mention women, and the study subjects were all men at least 5 years into a heterosexual relationship.) "There has been speculation about the role of the hormone vasopressin in humans ever since we discovered that variations in where receptors for the hormone are expressed makes prairie voles strictly monogamous but meadow voles promiscuous; vasopressin is related to the 'cuddle chemical' oxytocin. Now it seems variations in a section of the gene coding for a vasopressin receptor in people help to determine whether men are serial commitment-phobes or devoted husbands."
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I would have thought the opposite (Score:5, Funny)
I would have thought having multiple sets of in-laws would shorten your life expectancy through frustration alone...
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Nah (Score:5, Insightful)
Men who are comfortable having multiple wives have no problems telling the in-laws to stuff it.
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Re:I would have thought the opposite (Score:5, Funny)
Not only that, how does going from ONE nagging wife to TWO nagging wives make for longevity??
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Re:I would have thought the opposite (Score:5, Insightful)
They nag each other instead of nagging you?
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Re:I would have thought the opposite (Score:5, Funny)
Not only that, how does going from ONE nagging wife to TWO nagging wives make for longevity??
Maybe it just *seems* like his life is longer?
"Sit on a hot stove for a minute and it feels like an hour; sit with a pretty girl for an hour and it feels like a minute. Live with two wives and it makes sitting on a hot stove look pretty good." (with apologies to Albert Einstein)
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Re:I would have thought the opposite (Score:5, Insightful)
knowing that if she naggs to much or decides to cut off the sex, you will walk down the hall to the other wife tends, to make this a non issue.
Women compete naturally against each other.. here is an example.
She is being such a b*tch today.. you should come stay with me, I would never be like that. Flip sides repeat.
Hell look at Hugh Hefner.
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I think you ust hit the mail on the head (Score:5, Funny)
I suspect that people who are happy with their lives in general will live longer.
There are studies that show that married people live longer than those who are not.
There are studies that claim that happily married people live longer than those who are not happy in their marriage.
What makes men happy?
Being a guy I know I am happier when I get more opportunity for some "good" lovin' from my woman.
Do you see where I'm going with this? It's all about what makes you happy (imho).
Now then, the next question is: What makes women happy?
Figure that out and your onto something.
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You've completely missed it (Score:5, Funny)
Now then, the next question is: What makes women happy?
Figure that out and your onto something.
More like "figure that out, and she'll change her mind"
Just kidding, honey! Honest.
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Re:I think you ust hit the mail on the head (Score:5, Interesting)
Well,I actually watched a show on a family from the Mormon sect that still practices multiple wives,and the women were even happier about it than the men. You see it was like this,the wife that didn't want to be tied to the housework was able to get an education and become a paralegal,while the other three who were quite happy to be stay at home moms raised the young ones and took care of the house. All four said it was so wonderful how if one of them was sick,or just feeling wore down and needed a break,the others would give her a weekend "mini-vacation" and would take up the slack.
They did everything from breast feeding to carpooling together and by dividing the workload they were able to raise their 6 kids with nobody getting over stressed. They even had a "loving schedule" which allowed them to swap days between each other depending on who was feeling amorous or not in the mood. They were quite the model of efficiency,but of course with 4 wives and soon to be 7 kids you'd pretty much have to be. So despite the idea that it is a "mans paradise" women can be quite happy with the arrangement if they all get along.
What stuck the show in my mind was that the 3 wives were the ones who actually brought in the fourth. The husband wasn't actually keen on the idea at first. Two of them had a high school girlfriend who lost her husband(cancer I believe) and they invited her to stay with them and helped her to grieve. After awhile the 3 got together and said basically "Why don't we keep her?" and hooked her up with their husband. At the time of the show she was 7 months pregnant with their seventh child,which was her first. Seemed like a nice way to live to me. But as always this is my 02c,YMMV
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Re:I think you ust hit the mail on the head (Score:5, Interesting)
This is what we would call either a "major exception" or one hell of a deception.
FLDS polygamy is "iron-fist male" rule, by every honest account that's come out of it. Even the idea of a woman in such a society becoming a paralegal is ridiculous.
Of course, I can 100% believe the brainwashed women "brought in" the 4th - because in the FLDS, it's that fourth wife gets the family into heaven. Only men with 4 or more wives get into heaven, and wives can only get in if their husband brings them along. I can also certainly believe the husband wasn't so keen on bringing in a widow - after all, if he'd waited a couple more years, he'd probably have been assigned a nice cute 14-year-old by the "church elders."
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Re:I think you ust hit the mail on the head (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with polygomy isn't really a problem with women. If you are raised in that society there is nothing about a polygomous relationship that is inherently negative or abusive. The real problem is the men.
Imagine if every family held to about the same ratio of 1 husband to 4 wives. You now have 3 men who will never be able to find a wife, never be able to start a family. Beleive it or not, evolution had kind of made men extremely averse to this situation. Men get desperate, they do stupid things, and not just hooking up with ugly women. They take inordinate risks to gain prestige, they debase themselve to gain acceptence of people higher on the social ladder, they gamble their life and their money in the hopes of 'earning' a wife.
There's even been talk of this being the cause of many suicide bombings. People to low in the heirarchy know they will never have children and life looses some of it's meaning; to the point where the promise of wives in the afterlife is strong enough that it drives you to kill yourself.
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Related to an old joke (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Related to an old joke (Score:5, Funny)
(except Hans Reiser)
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Forwarding this to my wife... (Score:5, Funny)
...and I'll even share! I'm all for watching girl-on-girl action!
That being said, as much as my wife and I both love naked chicks, I can't imagine being married to more than one woman, let alone surviving longer from it. One woman is enough to kill me.
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There's a LOT to control for (Score:5, Interesting)
The most obvious explanation is that only the "fittest" men get to have multiple wives in the first place. They'll tend to be richer, and rich men live longer. They said they accounted for socioeconomic differences, but might it also be that physically fit men lived longer and attracted more wives?
I'm sure they tried to control for that and a host of other factors, but I'd really need to see the original paper to understand their work.
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Hugh Hefner (Score:5, Insightful)
A quick check shows Hugh Hefner at 82, that's proof enough for me.
Now if I could just convince my wife...
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Attempts to convince your wife... (Score:5, Funny)
May shorten your life expectancy.
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Polygamous cultures (Score:5, Insightful)
often practice warfare to an unusual degree. High numbers of young male deaths leads to a surplus of marriageable women -- including widows. Polygamy allows the fertility rate to compensate, among other things.
It follows that while the cost of war is borne most by the dead, any potential benefits must be shared disproportionately more by the survivors.
By a similar logic, I'd bet that the countries in question have a much higher mortality rate for young men from all causes, and that survivors into old age posses, disproportionately, social fitness. In other words the poor die young and the rich live longer. This may also be exacerbated when you look at certain small and exceptional countries, such as Brunei.
In any case, there is only so far clever juxtaposition of gross numbers can get you. To really understand data, you have to disaggregate it, which is probably not possible in the datasets they have. Overall male life expectancy is a better measure of male health, not the survival rates of those who have already reached advanced age. That's practically asking to have your data confounded.
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Wrong forum (Score:5, Funny)
Since no one here has a even a girlfriend, I would say this is neither news for nerds or stuff that matters. :(
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Question (Score:5, Funny)
I have only one question: what is the list of polygamous nations?
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Re:Question (Score:5, Funny)
I have only one question: what is the list of polygamous nations?
And the follow up, are they looking for more engineers?
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I just asked my wife about this (Score:5, Funny)
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i'm outraged! (Score:5, Funny)
Why was I not invited to participate in this study? No matter which test group you are assigned to, you end up getting tail. I happen to be a strong proponent of getting tail.
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And what about the women? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Wives need wives (Score:5, Interesting)
Any reliable wife will tell you that what she needs most on any given day is a wife. We compensate for monogamy by hiring wives for our wives; house cleaners, babysitters, daycare, diaper service, food delivery. Also, by living (well in the US) in a throw-away technical society we have striped away the need to make or repair clothes (sewing), prepare complex meals (eating out), corresponding (email, phone) and many other things that women "had" to do or felt needed to be done in a proper society.
My wife and I, married almost 14 years and with two kids, have discussed "getting" (not sure how to put it) a second wife. She's not opposed to it, understands it completely, but we haven't had a chance to try it yet. Since we live sustainably and don't take advantage of the many means to rent a wife, we don't really have much choice except to look for help. If you are going to use a woman that way, then you should support her, I feel. Renting is just a way to use something and throw it away, in the end. And paying for services that a woman could do herself is expensive the realm of the rich.
I don't know how having two wives would make me live longer as such, never gave it any thought, but it would reduce how much I worry about our family economy if I had two wives working as sisters to hold everything together, get back to simpler ways of doing things by hand and without technology. Homeschooling, food preparation and gardening are suddenly easier. My wife works so hard... she needs a wife.
[PS: Some will chorus "then help her do her work you smuck!" To which I reply "Ah, but I'm the one building the house." You see, when you really adopt the idea of do-it-yerself you bite off this enormous load of work that nobody even thinks about any more.]
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