Big love and big war: exploring the link between polygamy and violence

A curious thesis takes The Economist’s foreign editor to war zones and refugee camps

Why write about polygamy? It is illegal and rare in West, so people tend to regard it as a curiosity, a quaint tradition or even something to laugh about — think of television series like “Big Love”.

In America, polygamy is too rare to have broad social consequences, but in countries where it is common, it begets violence. Of the 20 most unstable countries in the world, all 20 are very or somewhat polygamous. A study by Satoshi Kanazawa of the London School of Economics found a strong link between polygamy and civil war.

That link is far from obvious, but actually quite simple. If the richest and most powerful 10% of men have, say, four wives each, the bottom 30% cannot marry. In many societies that means they have no status, are not considered adults and perhaps are barred from having sex. Frustrated and humiliated, they often take desperate measures to become rich or powerful enough to reproduce. Such as taking up arms and looting the village next door.

This is the kind of topic I most like writing about. It is complex, vivid and requires reporting from multiple countries. As The Economist’s foreign editor, I have to travel a lot anyway, and I always have a multi-country project on the go.

I made time to research polygamy during a number of trips I was making for other reasons. I was chairing a conference in Kazakhstan, so I took the opportunity to interview a writer there who studies (unofficial) polygamous relationships. I was reporting on an election in Pakistan, so I also sought out proud Muslim men with multiple wives.

It was during a trip to cover the civil war in South Sudan that I found the best illustrations of the link between polygamy and war. Some 40% of South Sudanese women are in plural marriages, and the country is in total chaos. Polygamy is not the only cause of the civil war, but it is clearly part of the story.

As in most war zones, the mechanics of reporting were not simple. I had a heck of a time getting the necessary visas and permits, and thuggish officials still claimed that I needed another. That caused me to miss an internal flight, and I had to waste precious days in Juba, the capital, until I could board another. Juba is not the easiest place to hang out. Drunken soldiers set up road blocks at night to rob motorists, so it is hard to go out after dark. The beer’s good, though.

Eventually, with help from the UN, who have lots of aid workers on the ground in South Sudan, I made it to Wau, a town that had recently been ethnically cleansed. There, I raced around on mud roads in a rugged truck looking for people with stories to tell.

Conversation by conversation, I pieced together how war and polygamy interact in South Sudan. Because the big men have dozens of wives, there are legions of young, poor men who are doomed to eternal bachelorhood. Those who wish to marry must give the bride’s family anything from 30 to 300 cows — a huge sum.

Young men admitted to me it would be fiendishly hard to amass that many cows by legitimate means. But they can always pick up a gun and steal a herd from the tribe next door. Because cattle-raiding is so common in South Sudan, herders carry AK47s to defend their beasts. Thousands of people are killed in cattle raids, and the mayhem can escalate into tribal war. Young men are often keen to join armed militias because they think it is their only chance of finding a fortune — and therefore a wife.

Because the big men have dozens of wives, there are legions of young, poor men who are doomed to eternal bachelorhood.

The consequences were visible in every refugee camp I visited. I spoke to dozens of people who had been driven from their homes by militiamen who killed their brothers, kidnapped their sisters and seized their land and livestock. Their stories were heart-breaking — some began an interview by bursting into tears.

A project like this is always the work of many hands. Before I set off, I read an illuminating book called “Out of Eden: The Surprising Consequences of Polygamy”, by David Barash, an evolutionary biologist. In each country I visited, I used fixers and interpreters. I also asked two fine colleagues, Maggie Shiltagh and Memphis Barker, to do some extra reporting from Egypt and Pakistan.

I ended the article with an interview with an aid worker who described what it was like growing up in a polygamous rebel officer’s family. I was moved by her description of how badly she was neglected, as is more or less inevitable when you are one of more than 40 siblings. I hope the article makes people think. There’s an argument in some parts of the world that recognising polygamy is the next big civil-rights struggle, now that gay marriage is legal in so many places. I think that’s a recipe for trouble.

Robert Guest is The Economist’s foreign editor. His story “The link between polygamy and war” appeared in the Christmas issue of The Economist on December 19th 2017.