Marital Structure and Economic Systems

Several theoretical explanations on crosscultural variation in marital structure are reviewed, with primary emphasis on explanations involving economic antecedents. Hypotheses derived from one of these theories are tested on data from the Ethnographic Atlas. The results indicate that the relationship between the economic productivity qf females and the occurrence of polygyny is different in different types of economic systems, and that extant theories are too simplistic to explain these differences. Suggestions are made for further theoretical development which involve the integration of several previous theories.