Men with more than one wife found to live longer

William Atkins
Saturday, 23 August 2008 01:28

Science - Biology

A British study has shown that polygamists live 12% longer, on average, than monogamists.


British ecologist Virpi Lummaa and British senior analyst/programmer Andrew Russell, both from the University of Sheffield, studied men over the age of 60 years from 140 countries that practice polygamy (marrying more than one wife at the same time) versus men over the age of 60 years from 49 countries that practice primarily monogamy.

As a note: Historically, “polygamy” is called “polygyny” when one man has more than one wife at the same time, and is called “polyandry” when one woman has more than one husband at the same time. Monogamy is the practice of a person (either man or woman) having only one spouse at any given time.

If you subscribe to New Scientist, the details of the study are found in its article “Polygamy is the key to a long life.”

If not, you can also read more about the study at the National Business Review’s article “Polygamy key to long life.”

An article of Dr. Lummaa’s research was presented to the International Society for Behavioral Ecology (ISBE) at its 12th annual International Behavior Ecology Congress meeting at Cornell University (Ithaca, New York), which was held between August 9-15, 2008.

It might be interesting to read these articles because the researchers are not yet sure why this longevity difference occurs between polygamous and monogamous men.

Dr. Lummaa does state within the articles various hypotheses as to the possible causes of the longevity difference. She intends to further investigate these hypotheses.