Marriage Regimes

Abstract

Marriage regimes exist in many guises and forms. Economists have studied monogamy and polygyny, the two most commonly encountered types, and pointed to various explanations why individuals form conjugal unions in each regime. However, many of these same benefits should more generally favor polygamy over monogamy, including polyandrous and cenogamous marriages, which are only rarely observed in practice. We show that human reproductive technology in combination with conflicting interests among parents in polygamous unions can explain why monogamy is most common, polygyny frequent, polyandry rare, and cenogamy virtually non-existent.