Polygyny and Democracy: A Cross-Cultural Comparison

What is it about?

In this paper we show that communal democracy is significantly and negatively correlated with polygyny. In turn, communal democracy is positively correlated with the democracy of supracommunal structures. Consequently, it is suggested that the fact that modern democracy developed in Europe (i.e. the very region that by the Late Middle Ages was already characterized by the highest proportion of complex societies with small monogamous families and democratic communities) might not be a coincidence.

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