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[QUOTE]Originally posted by zarahan- aka Enrique Cardova: [QB] [b]African food production and agriculture practices cause polygamy, with corresponding results in Black American family structure, claim assorted biodiversity proponents. "Tropical agriculture" needed all these extra hands, and women provided most of the agricultural labor force, polygamy took hold in African culture, and is thus reflected in Black American culture with its high OOW rates today. [/b] Assorted evidence put forward includes: A--- The anthropologists Jack Goody and Ester Boserup on how continental differences in raising food affected family structure. Boserup noted in 1970: "Africa is the region of female farming par excellence. In many African tribes, nearly all the tasks connected with food production continue to be left to women." B--- and evidence by James Q. Wilson:{quote): [QUOTE] [b]"In Europe, where animal-drawn plows were used to farm rich land, intensive agriculture made monogamy important… In these places, men did much of the agricultural work … In much of Africa, by contrast, farming was done by handheld hoes used to work small plots of land that were often rather infertile. Women were widely used to do the hoeing and carry in the produce. Many husbands found that they could use extra wives to wield even more hoes, and so marrying several women made sense economically… the conditions they describe may have had important consequences for the kinds of families that had to endure the travails of slavery in the Western Hemisphere." [/b][/QUOTE][IMG]http://www.mapsofworld.com/africa/maps/africa-map.gif[/IMG] ___________________________________________________________________________________[URL=http://knol.google.com/k/mainstream-academic-research/hypocritical-hereditarianism-why-higher/3q8x30897t2cs/42#]_[/URL] Claims of "important consequences" for black Americans however are weak on several counts, as are claims for the absence of monogamy in Africa: [b]1- Heavy female participation in African agriculture on tough soils is documented, but is this the PRIMARY cause for polygamy? Many scholars point to other factors such as the high child mortality rate, and whether there was a surplus of females in the populations. Others add more reasons.[/b] Books such as Demography: Analysis and Synthesis, (2005, Caselli et al,) see the chief causes of polygamy as sexual adn reproductive related rather than production/economic oriented. Polygamy they hold allows a man to maximize his offspring, or engage in sexual activity forbidden by certain cultures when a wife is pregnant or nursing a child. They also note strong political considerations as reasons for polygamy- such as local elites consolidating power and exhibiting prestige over the less powerful. Polygamy also serves to cement alliances between tribes, clans and bloodlines. [i]In short, while extra female labor to farm may play a part, the main causes of polygamy in Africa may have comparatively little to do with "tropical farming practices."[/i] ------------------------------------------------------------------- [b]2-- Furthermore women in both cold-climate Europe and Asia have long had heavy and burdensome involvement in agriculture, contradicting attempts to portray African women as some sort of unique beasts of burden.[/b] European women have long had heavy involvement in European agriculture for centuries, including milking animals, spinning wool, brewing ale, or turning out en masse for the harvests. One study of 1400 England for example found them doing heavy labor, including weeding, mowing, carrying grain, breaking stone for road repair, and driving plough oxen. (M. Mate, Women in medieval English society). Likewise in Asia, Chinese or Korean women were valued and exploited for their ability to engage in the back-breaking work of rice cultivation which required stoop labor to tend crops by hand, even though the plow was in wide use. It all depends what time periods are looked at. In European or Asiatic grain agriculture seasonal cycles such as planting and harvest time saw plenty of female labor deployed. The growth of mechanization in other eras was to also have its effects. [b]Data from China, even in the modern era AFTER decades of progressive communist rule, still shows women as heavy agricultural beasts of burden, when men monopolizing less demanding agricultural operations.[/b] [QUOTE] [i] "where machinery was used it was monopolised by men, and that this frequently made nonsense of the supposed distinction between 'heavy' men's work and 'light' women's work. For example, in one instance, Wolf's assistant came across three people working the fields. One was a man whose task it was to turn the switch to a water pump on and off. As a technician, he earned 10.5 work-points a day. The other two were women in their thirties 'wh were rushing back and forth ditching and damming to keep the water moving evenly through the fields. although the evening was cool, they were sweating with the effort it took to move the heavy waterlogged earth onto the banks of the ditches. They were unskilled workers and earned 6.5 workpoints for their day's labor'. Other reports suggest that through the 1980s and 1990s, in villages in which agricukture continued to be collectively managed, divisions of labour and inequalities in remuneration, such as those cited by Wolf, persisted.. Observing the situation at the chicken farm, however, the researcher felt that the women's work was far from beibg lighter than the men's. Men were responsible for carrying bags of feed on their shoulders, and for using a crushing machine to break up the feed. Meanwhile, it was the women's task to mix the feed and give it to the chickens and collect the eggs. Each day each woman had to collect 1,680 eggs, a task which the researcher estimated woud involve them bending down some 280 times a day." [/i] --Women's work in rural China: change and continuity in an era of reform. Tamara Jacka. 1997 [/QUOTE]In short, African women have never been the unique continental beasts of burden some make them out to be. ------------------------------------------------------------- [b]3- The claim of "carryover" to Black Americans is dubious. IN fact Black Americans in some eras, have posted BETTER monogamy rates than US Whites, and LOWER rates of illegitimacy than supposed pace-setting Nordic European whites in both the 19th and 20th centuries.[/b] If these "tropical" practices were the cause of US Black family instability, why did black folk for over 50 years after slavery post relatively low out-of-wedlock rates, and post higher marriage rates than whites? For a period of 50 years, from 1890 to 1940, every US census showed that blacks had higher marriage rates and lower divorce rates than whites. As late as 1960 black illegitimacy stood at only 19%, LOWER than that of today's whites, and LOWER than that of urbanized northern European whites during the 19th century- like the white Irish (posting sometimes a 50% illegitimacy rate in certain US cities, or white Vienna (46%), or white Stockholm (49%). In ultra-white Sweden at the start of the 20th century barely half of Swedish women married and around one-sixth of children were born out of wedlock. (Burns and Scott 1994) --Ailsa Burns, Cath Scott. 1994. Mother-headed families and why they have increased. Routledge. P. 61-84 Fast forwarding to the 20th century, white Northern European patterns are unimpressive. By the year 2000, out of wedlock births had reached 53% of all births- a steep rise from a mere 10% illegitimacy rate in mid century. (A population history of the United States By Herbert S. Klein, Cambridge University Press. 2004. p. 216) Nor are supposedly more virtuous white people of other "Nordic" nations any better. In the early 1980s illegitimacy rates were on the order of 45% in Iceland and Sweden and 40% in Denmark. (Report on Immigrant populations and demographic development in the member states of the Council of Europe. Rinus Penninx, Council of Europe. 1984.) White Australia in the 1980s weighed in at (35%), twice as high as US black rates as late as 1965. In short, when the historical data is examined, supposedly "more polygamous" blacks posted a better showing than whites on several counts. ------------------------------------------------------------- [b]4-- Assorted claims re "tropical patterns" fail to explain how non tropical Arabs, Jews and other "Middle Easterners practiced polygamy for millennia and how some still practice it today, and fail to explain how these peoples who strictly subordinated their women from exposure re agricultural work (such as the Muslim "purdah" practices) STILL engaged in widespread polygamy. [/b] If the heavy involvement of women in farm work is the cause, why do the Semitic Arabs, who try to keep their women in strict subordination, and who are not out in the fields like the African women, have widespread polygamy, even today in the 21st century? This should not be the case under assorted biodiversity "evolutionary" claims. ------------------------------------------------------------- [b]5- Europe itself has hardly been a shining example of monogamy in action historically. Numerous European peoples practiced polygamy, or its close equivalent, practices suppressed by a religion itself derived from Semitic peoples who practiced polygamy. And ironically, under the new religion, Europeans themselves continued to practice polygamy.[/b] In is known for example that the Emperor Justinian had to legilate against polygamy in his domains in 600AD, an action that should have been hardly necessary in supposed areas of Caucasoid monogamous bliss. And polygamous practices in all but name was for example is well documented in white Europe. Among the Celtic peoples for example: quote: [i]"In Ireland .. there were various forms of marriage. Ten classes were recognized in the law tract in marriage, of which only nine are explained. The first three are regular marriages.. The others are temporary unions. Comparing a thirteenth-century Welsh list to its eighth-century Irish counterpart, T.M. Charles-Edwards remarks that the "existence of the Welsh list suggests that in many respects the Welsh law of women resembled the Irish until the gradual progress of Christian ideas on marriage caused a fundamental transformation" However, Charles-Edwards continues, "even in the thirteenth century, this transformation was still very incomplete.." "Marriage and divorce, especially within the several recognized temporary unions, were relatively simple matters, and divorce did not automatically reflect badly on either party.. And this ""ease with which marital union was concluded and the almost equal ease with which it was dissolved," continues RR Davies, goes a long way in explaining the "apparently cavalier attitude toward so-called illegitimate offspring." To complicate matters still further, there is substantial evidence to suggest that concubinage was legally recognized and that there may well have been arrangements which we would now term polygamy and polyandry."[/i] --C.W. Sullivan. 1996. The Mabinogi: a book of essays (Garland Medieval Casebooks) . and Polygamy was legal among the Celts, with multiple wives recognized. Brehon [Irish law- pre-English conquest 17th Century) law for example -quote- [i]"stipulated that any injury sustained by a second wife in the first day of coming into the household of an established first wife was not a convictable offence."[/i] and [i]"There were ten classifications of Celtic marriage, each a specific form of contract, including one that was marriage for "a year and a day."[/i] --Walking the maze: the enduring presence of Celtic spirit By Loren Cruden. 1998 ---------------------------------------------------------------- [b]6-- Africa has always had monogamy, long before the arrival of Europeans, and polygamy has been a clear part of European and Asian culture until very recent times. In the middle East, it is alive and well among Semitic peoples.[/b] Polygamy was more common in Africa than in Europe, but monogamy also has a long history in Africa even before blacks were forcible transported to the US, and before any significant influence from Europe. Of the 31 captives of the famous Amistad slave ship for example, 15 were married, and only 1 was polygamous, and monogamy is common in various parts of Africa. See <i>Slavery in North Carolina, 1748-1775. by Marvin L. Michael Kay, Lorin Lee Cary- pg 160.</i> Asia has had polygamy for a long time parallel with monogamy, along with things like multiple concubinage, practiced in China. And it was not until 1945 that polygamy was finally abolished in Japan. And people like Jews practiced polygamy for centuries as documented in the Bible and anthropological studies, and for Arabs and those who follow Islam, polygamy is permissible even today. Indeed while monogamy has been more prevalent in Europe, polygamy has always been a part of European culture until very recent times. Indeed, one of the things Christianity did for Europe was to stamp out and discourage polygamy. Ironically, there is a long tradition of polygamy in white Christianity (see <i>After polygamy was made a sin: the social history of Christian polygamy- By John Cairncross</i>), and polygamy is documented as common in white Russia in various eras. Ironically Christianity itself, based on the religion of a Semitic people from the sub-tropical Middle East, not cold climate areas, was adopted in white Europe, providing the "rules of morality" that helped suppress polygamy (among other things) by Europeans in many regions as Cairncross notes. ----------------------------------------------------------------- [IMG]http://www.mhahome.org/pubs/img/books/mormon_polygamous_families.jpg[/IMG] [b]7-- Several examples show the continuing influence of polygamy in European culture. One of the most powerful European religions, that of Mormonism, not only practiced polygamy until comparatively recent times, but in its heavenly paradise, polygamy will be practices and recognized. Ironically even Nordic Aryan leader Adolf Hitler at times also had a favorable opinion of polygamy.[/b] Mormon leader Joseph Smith had numerous wives, one only 14 years old, and referred to "spiritual wifery" that would be "sealed" throughout eternity. Polygamyis part and parcel of the Mormon paradise. [QUOTE] : "After death, while their husbands are creating and ruling over planets, the women have the questionable honor of bearing his "spirit children" for eternity. These spirit children descend to their father's planet to inhabit bodies as mortals, who are then ruled over by him. Mormon Doctrine states that these celestially married men and women will live eternally in the family unit and have spirit children, theus becoming Eternal fathers and Eternal Mothers." A man who has multiple wives can beget many more spirit children, making him much more powerful. Mormon men must beget as many children with as many wives as possible, for "their glory (in heaven) is in proportion to the number of their wives and children" (Snowden 11)." [/QUOTE]--D. Kirkland. 2008. Mormons and Muslims: A Case of Matching Fingerprints Other references: [i] Charles W. Penrose, "Mormon" Doctrine Plain and Simple, or Leaves from the Tree of Life, 1897, Salt Lake City, p.66 ("In the case of a man marrying a wife in the everlasting covenant who dies while he continues in the flesh and marries another by the same divine law, each wife will come forth in her order and enter with him into his glory."); Joseph Fielding Smith, Bruce R. McConkie, ed., Doctrines of Salvation, 1956, vol. 2, p. 67 (Smith, who was sealed to two different women, stated, "[M]y wives will be mine in the eternity."); Harold B. Lee, Deseret News 1974 Church Almanac, p. 17 ("My lovely Joan was sent to me: So Joan joins Fern/That three might be, more fitted for eternity./'O Heavenly Father, my thanks to thee'.").[/i] [IMG]http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/assets/images/2010/02/18/100218170126_hitler_braun_getty_466.jpg[/IMG] [b]And a mere 70 or so years ago, "Aryan" Nazi German itself was encouraging polygamy.[/b] QUOTE: [i]"Although monogamy was the official marriage from of Nazi Germany, the society in effect, turned toward polygamy because Aryan males were encouraged to beget Aryan children with as many racially qualified women as possible- in and out of wedlock." [/i] --Young-Bruehl (2002) The anatomy of prejudices). According to The Fuherer in his own words" [i]"Let's remember that after the Thirty Years War polygamy was tolerated, so that it was thanks to the illegitimate child that the nations recovered its strength."[/i] And lamenting those Rhine maidens that have never known man, the Fuherer further argues: [i]"As long as we have in Germany two and a half million women vowed to celibacy, we shall be forbidden to despise the child born out of wedlock." [/i] --L. Pine, 1999, Nazi family Policy [b]Curiously, according to one book, a number of white Mormons following their practice of prayers for dead and eternal marriage have interceded for Hitler and Eva Braun: [/b] --quote-- [i] "Adding insult to injury, zealous Mormons also stood proxy for Adolf Hitler's and Eva Braun's baptisms and eternal marriage. If the prospect of meeting Hitler as a god in eternity rankles the sensitivities of most non-Mormons, imagine the impact of such an idea on a Jew." [/i] ( --LaTayne Scott. 2010. The Mormon Mirage: A Former Member Looks at the Mormon Church Today) [/QB][/QUOTE]
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