Divorce Rate: Satoshi Kanazawa Says Allowing Polygamy Would Bring Down Divorce Rate (VIDEO)

Would permitting polygamy lower the divorce rate?

Yes, according to evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa. In the Big Think video above, Kanazawa suggests that western society's disapproval of polygamy is to blame for high rates of divorce.

"Humans are naturally polygynous," said Kanazawa. "Successful men have always acquired more mates, but we don't allow that in our society, so successful men are forced to divorce their previous wives who may be past the reproductive age in order to marry younger wives. If we allow polygyny -- if we allow some men to acquire multiple mates -- the divorce rate would go down dramatically."

Kanazawa, who's associated with the London School of Economics, has garnered criticism in the past for a May 2011 blog post on Psychology Today in which he suggested black women are "objectively less physically attractive than other women."

Do you agree with Kanazawa's thoughts on the divorce rate? Watch the video above and let us know what you think in the comments.

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Comments

[syds180turn]

08:22 PM on 07/14/2012

More patriarchal BS from a neanderthal posing as an intellectual. For centuries women have been treated as chattel, possessions, bargaining chips, property...what ever tag you want to put on it. Now this dunce wants men to partake in polygamous relationships as if ALL women would go along with that. Maybe weak, brainwashed, Stepford wives but not strong, independent, educated and successful women who finds even the suggestion of such dribble...offensive. I found after reading some of these off the wall articles, these male psychologists, evolutionists, social anthropologists and what not, can truly come up with every reason in the world for men to have their cake and eat it too. They're the same ones who came up with the clinical illness of 'sex addiction". It couldn't just be a person has no moral compass...oh no, it always has to be a reason for men to behave like dogs in heat. This guy is a fruit loop and he needs to go back to his cave and come up with some more laughable theories because he is out of his mind.

[labrat03]

05:59 PM on 07/12/2012

How does this guy expect men to have more than 1 wife when there is 160 million more MEN in the world than women?

[Janet Logan]

01:14 PM on 07/12/2012

That's as may be, but I suspect the murder rate would go up.

Serial monogamy I might go for, with term defined marriages, renewable by mutual consent. Children might be a problem, but no more so than the current system.

Or polyandry - now that might be worth a go.

This is yet another bloke trying to shoe-horn his own desires into a philosophy, one long dismissed by almost every western society.

Every man I've ever seen who has actually had multiple spouses only presents a greater mystery - how did he ever find ONE woman to marry him?

[CSNC]

01:03 PM on 07/12/2012

There is no amount of pain that some people cannot endure.

H

[CSNC]

01:03 PM on 07/12/2012

It is like saying... "I know I just hit my left thumb with a hammer. And now I am just going to do the same thing with my right thumb."

H

[CSNC]

01:00 PM on 07/12/2012

"Divorce Rate: Satoshi Kanazawa Says Allowing Polygamy Would Bring Down Divorce Rate"

We ban a bunch of things that are bad for us... Why not ban marriages and get rid of divorce all together?

H

[Edogg62]

12:57 PM on 07/11/2012

Why would ANYONE want more than one spouse? Is EVERYONE completely oblivious to human nature? WE (as in men AND women) get bored... sorry... WE take our significant others for granted... mainly because we trust them with the worst of ourselves. The idiocy of a man being polygamous so they can have more sex? Ha ha. No man who has been married would buy into that fairy tale. All it would mean is more people chewing into your soul every day about trivialities... the trash, the dishwasher, the car, the yard, trips to see family you despise et al. More SEX? Ha ha ha. Please.

And ladies? Can we stop the "WE can be idiots TOO!" arguments... (re: much younger mates etc)... someone posted something about WOMEN having two HUSBANDS... one for tasks, then a "stud" for sex. I have yet to met ANY married man whose wife wants MORE sex... it's not about the quality in my experience... my wives both have/had multiple orgasms consistently, both sexual relationships were very passionate... they simply lost interest due to their having crossed the cliched finish line. Successful husband? Check. Kids? Check. Man to handle "man" chores? Check. Sex at THAT point for MOST women becomes a chore. Something they initially only did to land the fish. As my wife and ALL her friends put it? "Women ENJOY sex, they don't NEED it." Men LIVE to have sex.

[AGO2]

04:59 PM on 07/13/2012

"Women ENJOY sex, they don't NEED it." Men LIVE to have sex. I guess that means that women hold all the cards, doesn't it?!

[KatK]

04:40 PM on 07/10/2012

From a woman's point of view, Kanazawa offers a cure that is much worse than the disease - and there is no proof it is even a cure.

If he were truly an evolutionary pyschologist, he would know that women evolved to want one man to help with child rearing. Polygamy only works when women are considered to be the property of men and don't have the freedom to leave. Otherwise they simply walk out of a situation like that.

[Lloyd Lloyd]

11:55 AM on 07/16/2012

The how come they are more women alone today than at any other time in history..?

[KatK]

02:25 PM on 07/16/2012

Are there? What proof do you have?

Even if that is true, perhaps it is because women have more freedom in the past and are less likely to be pushed into a bad marriage and more likely to end a bad one. It is far, far better to be alone than to be someone's second or third wife. Yuk.

[whalepeace]

01:14 AM on 07/09/2012

Hogwash. More patriarchal male hogwash.

All human societies, past and present, have had the institution of marriage or its functional equivalent. If humans were, as Kanazawa asserts, naturally polygynous, then one would expect all societies to institute polygynous marriage. Polygynous marriage only happens where women are considered second-class subhumans, where women have no economic independence, and are reduced to dependency on a patriarchal male who makes the rules.

Where there is true love, there is a passion for fidelity. You can never have true love where there is inequality, where one person is with another only because of economic necessity or because no other options exist.

In my entire life, I have NEVER heard a woman say anything like, "Gee, I wish I was married to a guy who had several other wives. If polygyny were so natural,you would expect women to be drooling at the thought and they are not.

Why is HP giving this racist and sexist man and his racist and sexist ideas a forum? Let him sink into well-deserved obscurity.

[Tolms]

05:38 PM on 07/09/2012

It's not natural for women, it's natural for men.

And what cultures are you familiar with where women weren't treated like chattel? It was certainly true until about 50 years ago even in our culture. Poloygamy is very common outside of western culture and in some instances one woman has multiple husbands. It happens. I don't agree with this guy but I don't agree with you either.

[Brianna Cole]

08:52 PM on 07/09/2012

Amazons.

[stevchipmunk]

03:54 AM on 07/08/2012

This guy is a... thinker? He doesn't seem to know much about what he's talking about.

Everybody knows that there are a zillion reasons for divorce -- NOT just the male wanting a young female when the older one can't procreate anymore. Reasons include cheating, arguing about money, arguing about sex, about finances in general, different ideas about how to treat people... ad infinitum, including disagreements about who takes out the dog and who brings in the cat..

This guy knows oh, so little, about why people get divorced.

[Lloyd Lloyd]

11:57 AM on 07/16/2012

Yes stevo, but a lot of those metioned are because he may not be into her that much anymore...

The same words coming from a demanding dominant female mouth sound much much different than whe the words come from a pretty and submissive female...

It is not the message but the messanger

[Libertarian5]

12:06 PM on 07/07/2012

His idea would not make women happier as the pasha would expect his harem to be chaste for him. I have a better idea. In my experience, most American women are fixated on getting the impossible, a stud who also does the dishes. But studs rarely tend to be good servants. So allow women to have two husbands, a dominant stud and a more submissive caring one, who'll complement each other. Just a thought.

[Edogg62]

12:42 PM on 07/11/2012

Yes, so many married women are just DYING for sex. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

[RealistBC]

04:15 AM on 07/06/2012

Sure, let's allow the alpha males to monopolize all the women. It would humanize them to have to deal with so many angry females whose expectations aren't getting met because of the competition.

[mellow yellow]

10:58 AM on 04/28/2012

I really don't see why consenting adults shouldn't be allowed to marry as many people as they want, but i don't think it would have too much of an effect on divorce rates, It's not like the abandoned partner is gonna stick around while their spouse marries their boyfriend/girl friend.

[bemidjigreen]

11:47 PM on 07/08/2012

IF you want to live like that, why do you need to get married?

[mellow yellow]

02:43 PM on 07/09/2012

I don't want to live like that, i don't even wanna marry one person, but it doesn't effect me if other people do.

[BookQueen]

09:26 AM on 04/28/2012

So another thought just occurred to me. Women who have affairs are actually more likely to leave their husband then men who have affairs. And women in general initiate more divorces.

So really, to lower the divorce rate, we need to let women take second husbands!!!! That way we won't leave our husband because we want someone to be more romantic or talk to us. We'll have two guys and we'll get enough sex/romance and intimate conversations.

And if that doesn't work, let us have three husbands.

Best of all, the arrangement would make sense financially - instead of increasing the number of babies, you'd be increasing the number of wage-earners. You'd be able to stay home when your kids were small and still pay for college and save for retirement.

[RealistBC]

04:16 AM on 07/06/2012

The only extra husbands you women want are the sexless variety. Gay men encouraged to apply!

[OtayPanky]

01:39 PM on 07/06/2012

Bookqueen: So really, to lower the divorce rate, we need to let women take second husbands!!!!

---

That sounds like a good idea. No doubt there are a lot of guys out there who'd like to be a 2nd or 3rd "hubby" (or more), getting some strange from 3 or 4 different women on a semi-regular basis (say once a month?) as long as they didn't have to pay for dinner date any other time, or any kids that weren't their own.

[AnaCe]

08:18 AM on 04/27/2012

I think if a person, man or woman, can't cope with having a single sexual partner, THEN STAY SINGLE!!! NO one can 't have it all. "I want kids, but I don t want a partner". "I want Kids, I want a lot of partners, and I want everyone to get along". Kinda impossible and selfish. CHOOSE a way to not HURT anyone. DON'T HAVE KIDS. STAY SINGLE IF YOU WANT A LOT OF SEX WITH A BUCH OF PEOPLE. I stayed single for a LONG TIME because I could not be with one person. Then WHY people insist in getting married, in having a family if they are UNCAPABLE?

[OtayPanky]

01:39 PM on 07/06/2012

Actually, a lot of women make the choice to have kids without having a partner. It's the cool thing to do!

[AGO2]

05:26 PM on 07/13/2012

It is not cool and one is setting themselves up for a hard life as a single mother unless they are independently wealthy and can hire someone to help them. Most single mothers live below the poverty level and have lost hope for consistent help from their "baby daddy". If only they had made a better "choice" in a partner instead of cool, mindless breeding.

[Lloyd Lloyd]

11:58 AM on 07/16/2012

Oh okay ana. Hey nice way you have at communicating, do you YELL everything you communicate..?