Polygyny without wealth: popularity in gift games predicts polygyny in BaYaka Pygmies

Abstract

The occurrence of polygynous marriage in hunter-gatherer societies, which do not accumulate wealth, remains largely unexplored since resource availability is dependent on male hunting capacity and limited by the lack of storage. Hunter-gatherer societies offer the greatest insight in to human evolution since they represent the majority of our species' evolutionary history. In order to elucidate the evolution of hunter-gatherer polygyny, we study marriage patterns of BaYaka Pygmies. We investigate (i) rates of polygyny among BaYaka hunter-gatherers; (ii) whether polygyny confers a fitness benefit to BaYaka men; (iii) in the absence of wealth inequalities, what are the alternative explanations for polygyny among the BaYaka. To understand the latter, we explore differences in phenotypic quality (height and strength), and social capital (popularity in gift games). We find polygynous men have increased reproductive fitness; and that social capital and popularity but not phenotypic quality might have been important mechanisms by which some male hunter-gatherers sustained polygynous marriages before the onset of agriculture and wealth accumulation.

Keywords: genetic quality; hunter–gatherers; polygyny; social capital; social networks.

Figure 1.

Scatter plot and regression lines of number of currently living offspring by age rank. Purple squares/line are polygynous individuals and blue circles/line are non-polygynous individuals.

Figure 2.

Boxplot comparing gift game in-degree z-scores of polygynous and non-polygynous men. Z-scores are standardized by camp, to allow simultaneous comparison of social capital of men from all camps by controlling for camp size. Hollow circles represent outliers. Sample sizes are indicated in parentheses.