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Anyone knows when the greek/roman (or anyone else) start prohibiting polygamy and why?

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Polygamy means that one can have many spouses, (even a woman). What you are taking about is something different. – apoorv020 Nov 22 '11 at 6:53
@apoorv020: read the text more closely: "too many women would rather share a man". If several women share one man, that's polygamy, and if they also don't have multiple husbands, then some men must go without wives. – mgkrebbs Nov 22 '11 at 7:13
@mgkrebbs:No, if only men have multiple spouses, then it's polygyny. – apoorv020 Nov 22 '11 at 8:25
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Please consider formulating this as a question rather than an answer. Particularly if everything you can come up with are wild speculations that attract downvotes to an otherwise valid question. – Wladimir Palant Nov 22 '11 at 19:29
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@JimThio: This is a history site, not psychology. You have to ask about historical events or something that can be explained with historical events. And any relation between monogamy and democracy is such a ridiculous assumption that Rory's is the only valid answer to it. You should be the one to provide evidence supporting this assumption, not the people who answer you. Next time you will ask whether Ancient Greeks went into space and require evidence that they didn't. – Wladimir Palant Nov 23 '11 at 7:33
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closed as not a real question by Wladimir Palant, Hauser, MichaelF, Seth Rogers, Tom Au Dec 10 '11 at 0:15

It's difficult to tell what is being asked here. This question is ambiguous, vague, incomplete, overly broad, or rhetorical and cannot be reasonably answered in its current form. For help clarifying this question so that it can be reopened, see the FAQ.

2 Answers

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There are many many facts that would account for monogamy :

  1. Gender ratio - The gender ratio at birth is about 1:1. If there is no large scale deaths in males, then polygamy would essentially leave many men wifeless.
  2. Religion - Christianity bans adultery and polygamy. Given the dominance of Christian Europe in the last few centuries, this has probably had a lot of influence.
  3. Human Nature - Nobody wants to share. polygamy can probably lead to uncomfortable living conditions.
  4. Economics - Supporting a wife and children is expensive. Supporting more than one wife and extra children would probably be out of the reach of majority of population in ancient times.

I might also point out that monogamy was already an established custom in the monarchies that have since become democracies, so the correlation (if any), should only be made between monogamy and monarchies. Since most of the known world was monarchial in nature, this essentially means that we don't have enough data for a correlation.

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You said no body wants to share? Are there any historical evidence? I mean I'd rather share a porn star than be the only one for ugly women. – Jim Thio Nov 22 '11 at 7:36
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I don't believe "Christianity" does ban polygamy. It was a common practice throughout the Old and New Testaments, and was never forbidden by scripture. That's not to say certain modern Christian sects don't ban it, though... – Flimzy Nov 26 '11 at 1:37
Flimzy you are correct. Judaism doesn't prohibit polygamy. Something else did. I pick this as the answer because there is no better answer. – Jim Thio Dec 12 '11 at 6:17
+1 for Flimzy for pointing out the unobvious. – Jim Thio Dec 17 '11 at 4:37
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Unlikely. Polygamy was banned in Europe centuries before democracy, and it would have been banned for religious reasons rather than men voting to ban it to increase their chances of marriage.

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Any sources? Yes polygamy goes both way males and females. – Jim Thio Nov 23 '11 at 5:20
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Religion is never the true reason. Religion is always a mask of something those in power already want. – Jim Thio Nov 25 '11 at 10:48

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