Gender ratio imbalance

[Probus888]

Was wondering about sci-fi explorers coming across a lost planet where women outnumber men by about 5 - 1. Basically 5 girls are born for every 1 boy. What do you think the implications would be. I can see the more successful men having harems of women. But would women be devalued or treated as valued property? What do you think?

 

[NewOldGuy77]

With that ratio, women would be in the positions of power. The men would be valuable commodities like diamonds, hoarded and kept locked away, perhaps rented out for stud services. Only infertile men or men with defective genes with no value to society would be prostitutes, available to the lower classes. Fertile men, no matter their size, would be coveted, perhaps even dueled over by the wealthy and powerful.

 

[Probus888]

Thanks for that idea. I thought that as a man could (in theory) father hundreds of children and with men's greater size and physical strength, it would be more like lions.

 

[FantasyXY]

I kind of feel like Probus's comment about lions would stick on this one.

In this society the best fighters get the most women, but the best looking get the most beautiful.

 

[Probus888]

Women are devalued all over the world now and there's enough harem stories to make anyone not a misogynist or a 14 year old puke.

Good news is you're right in the wheel house of this forum.

Sadly, you are right that women are devalued. In this world I'm writing about the women are more valued but not treated as equals (but will the off world explorers try to change that)? BTW from your tag, you're a fan of HPL and I have recently finished and will upload soon a HPL horror. Though doubt if he'd approved of the erotic content!

 

[Probus888]

I kind of feel like Probus's comment about lions would stick on this one.

In this society the best fighters get the most women, but the best looking get the most beautiful.

Thank you, I thought that - and on the world I am thinking of the more powerful have larger harems than ordinary men.

 

[Bubo_bubo]

It depends. Since we're talking about humans, whose gender proportion is normally 1/1, this change in gender proportion must have happened at some point in their history. So then you need to answer some questions first:
- When in the societal development of these humans happened this change?
- What was the culture like at the moment this change happened
- Was the change sudden or not
- Was the change connected to other perturbations

If it happened to hunter-gatherer societies a long time ago, and you've had centuries for different societies and cultures to develop, your answer is going to be lot more different than if this happened as a kind of apocalypse to a highly developed star trek like culture.

 

[Bubo_bubo]

A biological point I'd like to make is about breeding populations.
The growth of a breeding populations is limited not by the number of individuals, but by the number of females, especially in species with a long gestation period like humans, with only rarely multiple births.

That means that society has less of a problem if it encourages aggressive, risky behaviour in males than in females (with the males ending up being hunters rather than gatherers and in more developed societies, the warriors/soldiers). However as the proportion of males decreases this kind of calculation will change.

 

[NewOldGuy77]

It depends. Since we're talking about humans, whose gender proportion is normally 1/1, this change in gender proportion must have happened at some point in their history. So then you need to answer some questions first:
- When in the societal development of these humans happened this change?
- What was the culture like at the moment this change happened
- Was the change sudden or not
- Was the change connected to other perturbations

If it happened to hunter-gatherer societies a long time ago, and you've had centuries for different societies and cultures to develop, you're answer is going to be lot more different than if this happened as a kind of apocalypse to a highly developed star trek like culture.

Think about the results of China's "one-child" policy. The result was way more males and a shortage of women, leading to a very competitive environment where women are in high demand but short supply. The angry and frustrated men have started sourcing women from other nearby countries - not always willingly - to make up the shortage.

https://shoebat.com/2018/07/31/mill...napping-and-trafficking-women-for-sex-slaves/

This is why I proposed to Probus888 that the overpopulated women hold positions of power, while men become precious commodities.

 

[Probus888]

Think about the results of China's "one-child" policy. The result was way more males and a shortage of women, leading to a very competitive environment where women are in high demand but short supply. The angry and frustrated men have started sourcing women from other nearby countries - not always willingly - to make up the shortage.

https://shoebat.com/2018/07/31/mill...napping-and-trafficking-women-for-sex-slaves/

This is why I proposed to Probus888 that the overpopulated women hold positions of power, while men become precious commodities.

Thank you for your detailed input and it sure gives me something to think about. I will have to look into how and when this change happened - the story is on a sci-fi lost colony world and I think it may be due to chemicals in the atmosphere that caused the gender imbalance. It is only for a story but I like to make my settings as 'realistic' as possible.

 

[Probus888]

It depends. Since we're talking about humans, whose gender proportion is normally 1/1, this change in gender proportion must have happened at some point in their history. So then you need to answer some questions first:
- When in the societal development of these humans happened this change?
- What was the culture like at the moment this change happened
- Was the change sudden or not
- Was the change connected to other perturbations

If it happened to hunter-gatherer societies a long time ago, and you've had centuries for different societies and cultures to develop, your answer is going to be lot more different than if this happened as a kind of apocalypse to a highly developed star trek like culture.

Thanks for your input, I appreciate that. The story setting is a sci-fi lost world colony and I think it may be due to chemicals in the atmosphere that caused the gender imbalance after the colony was started. You've given me food for thought.

It depends. Since we're talking about humans, whose gender proportion is normally 1/1, this change in gender proportion must have happened at some point in their history. So then you need to answer some questions first:
- When in the societal development of these humans happened this change?
- What was the culture like at the moment this change happened
- Was the change sudden or not
- Was the change connected to other perturbations

If it happened to hunter-gatherer societies a long time ago, and you've had centuries for different societies and cultures to develop, your answer is going to be lot more different than if this happened as a kind of apocalypse to a highly developed star trek like culture.

f

 

[Carnevil9]

Where do you think the phrase "women and children first" comes from?

It's because one man can impregnate hundreds of women in the time it takes each woman to birth one baby. Save the men and lose the women, and your civilization is fucked. Save the women and a few dudes (even older ones) and you will be fine.

So the implications of your hypothetical planet are that its population could explode in a very short time.

 

[LupusDei]

Was wondering about sci-fi explorers coming across a lost planet where women outnumber men by about 5 - 1. Basically 5 girls are born for every 1 boy. What do you think the implications would be. I can see the more successful men having harems of women. But would women be devalued or treated as valued property? What do you think?

I believe to have read that in humans subject to acute evolutionary pressures the gender balance does shift somewhat, and perhaps bit counter intuitively towards more expendable and adaptable males in times of adaptive pressures associated with higher mortality, and towards the more survivable females in times of endurance pressures like mild chronic malnutrition or survivable diseases, and also good times when population growth is unbounded. Those natural shifts are small however and generally superseded by cultural preferences influencing infant mortality, with higher infant mortality itself favoring male overproduction.

A 1:5 ratio is way too large to be explained that way however, especially in favor of females. But I think it is still small enough and right around up to where almost any, from very nearly like our current standard to about any exotic arrangement could be constructed, with the ratio justifying whatever unusual structures you could possibly want.

An imbalance so large the other way could probably create far more serious problems. Because, yes, procreation being dependent almost solely on the number of available women, a society where almost every man has a small harem is probably under less stress than society where multiple men compete for every woman.

And yes, some men forming harem or otherwise engaging with multiple women are a feature even at balanced birthrate, and probably would be still far into the side of over abundance of men (middle east cultures being prime example). Indeed, I rather see widespread "ownership" and enslavement of women in shortage of the same than in abundance.

Population with high number of excess women would have high explosive growth potential indeed, but it would not necessarily be realized at any given time. Even as slow human procreation may appear, it is still always bound and regulated almost exclusively by ecological factors (what in the broadest meaning already include economic and cultural aspects).

The fertility period in human females is roughly thirty years and they reach sexual maturity at roughly half that, meaning the exponent of maximized growth is very steep against what one might naively expect, with up to three generations potentially producing offspring at once. (That's one reason why increasing minimum age of consent is a very effective population growth control tool, it flattens the exponent considerably.)

The result is, with breeding as main imperative and no material limits the current global human population numbers could be rebuilt from arbitrary small starting group in a time as short as a few centuries. Really, human farm type environments could go from just mere tens to tens of billions in under five hundred, probably even three hundred years. I have done that modeling and been shocked with the results.

What that means, there's a lot of freedom for defining the history of the "lost planet" as it doesn't necessarily require many thousands of years since settlement or even last apocalyptic event to have decent population nearing limits of the ecosystem, rather, it would be already always near full for the economic strategy employed by the inhabitants.

That strategy, namely the intensity and type of agriculture and available technology level would define the culture to a large extent, but history how we got there could and likely would matter at least as much. Devolving of complex societies, if that's desired, isn't all that easy, it requires either excess availability of untapped resources or be associated with loss of life on a massive scale to bring the population down to the shrunk limits of the ecosystem as the technology is lost, although, the great plague in Europe actually triggered the technological revolution still ongoing here, so it's tricky.

Since settling on another planet necessarily requires availability of rather high technology either in the setting humans themselves or whatever helpers they might have had, the "lost planet" almost certainly would have at least one such collapse episode in its past, the exempt being deliberate seeding with humans abducted from suitable low technology cultures (I would avoid "primitive" as adjective to contemporary or even historical tribal societies as misleading) eiter by maintaining strict non-contact policy from the seeders, or the seeders subsequent quick disappearance from the scene. Even crash survivors would have to first "devolve" and could carry over concepts of advanced society even without available technology, an so likely would any limited expedition groups, exiles, and otherwise unsupported settlements.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Final Stand’s One in Ten series postulates a world where a plague has killed of 90% of men

Political power has shifted entirely to women and the surviving men are powerless. Married men are exempt, but unmarried men who cannot show proof of having had sex recently can be legally compelled by any women who asks to engage in sex. Despite the initial expected masculine reader reaction of ‘Heaven!’, it’s not a pleasant situation for men, not at all.

Impossible? I’m not sure. Quantity has a quality all its own and 10-to-1 odds are pretty grim, no matter how strong men might be. If votes count in times of crisis, majorities generally vote for their own welfare. What I found less credible was that a high-functioning society continued at all, with subways and music and industry and so forth, but, hey, artistic licence and such. Overall, I found the world-building convincing.

Further to that, the classic ‘harem’ concept hinges on one male acquiring multiple women for his own pleasure. In a situation with such a gender imbalance, I suspect it might be more likely for groups of women to form ‘cooperatives’, by whatever name, ones sharing one man between them to ensure they all get at least some access. Same numbers, very different dynamic. There could be significant social stress from women outside such groups, ones with no access to their own men.

As to cause, a disease selectively targeting men is not impossible. One which stuck around to target post-pandemic male babies would be very bad news, of course.

I am unconvinced that an unusual population jump would be inevitable. After all, there would be the same number of wombs out there and, as the saying goes, you cannot produce a baby in one month by impregnating nine women. Yes, numbers would increase, all other things being equal, but no faster than with a one-to-one ratio.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Without in any

Ha! Too funny! Do you think the women will give a fuck about the men in that ratio? We'd be off surfing and having fun.

Who needs to stress over "Breeding"? ffs - how misogynistic an attitude is that?! Maybe that planet wouldn't be as fucked up as ours and would still have clean seas and a decent lifestyle. At least if the men are locked up we wouldn't have to keep looking over our shoulders all day. Sapphic bliss

Without in any way sneering at or dissing those on that side of the street, most women do prefer (or at least like) men in their beds and, given that most women today have some access to contraception, that children continue to be born suggests that motherhood is not universally scorned. Improvements in male behaviour would be nice to many, but not a total erasure.

But yeah, one hopes the beaches are good.

 

[LupusDei]

it would be more like lions.

Yes, taking the lions pride for a base model could probably be a great way to explore possibilities, at least on the most savage end of civilization.

I may be mistaken, but my understanding would that translated to human terms as directly as possible (in a very low level society) it would yield settled or semi-settled independent households jointly led and maintained by a small cooperative of women with their younger kids, while men would lead semi-solitary more or less nomadic lifestyle joining such households only seasonally and not necessarily strongly associated to any.

While it seems viable model at least as long everyone behaves reasonably, it's worth contemplating what economic incentives could lead to such gender roles. What value the traveling man brings to the settled women households that a domesticated one wouldn't?

It is worth to note that in lions this arrangement creates appearance there's more females than males even at balanced birthrates, so taking it too literally may further exacerbate the effects of the existing imbalance.

Experiments in domestication of men would be unavoidable, even if involving only especially feminine men employing mimicry to stay in favorable positions. Indeed, I think I recall some "are lions going to lose the mane?" type headlines exploring feminine mimicry in actual male lions.

Going all the way with the animal model, arrival of such wandering males could be associated with violence. However that implies circumstances where the presumably animalistic average strength and aggressiveness driven gender differences and traditional roles matter. Human ability to exert deadly force far surpass that of any other predator even with the most primitive of weapons; just like lionesses, human female hunter-gatherer collectives would be far from helpless.

It would be expected some women would assume traditional male roles, and given enough disruption of tradition, the men could possibly abandon our "traditional" norm entirely becoming almost exclusively flashy peacock flamboys.

With the domestic man reintroduced, and allowing for at least limited agriculture, we arrive at what doesn't differ all that much from central north European free peasant homestead.

Such subsistence farms importing only salt, metal and luxuries are extremely stable, existing in large areas of Europe for over six thousand years, and would consist of owning host family ranging from one member to several dozen including four generations and horizontal extensions up to first cousins of any generation, and up to four servant families living under the same roof (even if typically in slightly more cramped quarters on the servants side from the central kitchen). While those servant statuses might have varied wildly, over time and possibly even within the same household at , from adopted family to occasional near-enslavement, they typically are believed to have most resembled live-in paid hands, on a contract either side could terminate with an one year notice, and not differ much in status from host's own non-inheriting children or living-in peripheral relatives.

While historically such households would hold at least one and up to twenty men all ages combined, analogous in this world not always would have one, but perhaps more typically there still would be three to five, up to possibly eight for the largest fifty person strong cooperatives. We can then even allow for traces of religiously conserved male roles for cultural relatability, even if those could as well be little more than mostly ceremonial notions.

And yes, at least few of those free peasant women did grew up to be warriors, and many more were armed when self defense of the household demanded, against a raid of neighbors Viking-ing or otherwise. For larger hostilities there were elected kings in hill forts with standing guard and road police, and dedicated prepared hideouts to retreat to.

 

[Bubo_bubo]

Yes, taking the lions pride for a base model could probably be a great way to explore possibilities, at least on the most savage end of civilization.

I may be mistaken, but my understanding would that translated to human terms as directly as possible (in a very low level society) it would yield settled or semi-settled independent households jointly led and maintained by a small cooperative of women with their younger kids, while men would lead semi-solitary more or less nomadic lifestyle joining such households only seasonally and not necessarily strongly associated to any.

While it seems viable model at least as long everyone behaves reasonably, it's worth contemplating what economic incentives could lead to such gender roles. What value the traveling man brings to the settled women households that a domesticated one wouldn't?

It is worth to note that in lions this arrangement creates appearance there's more females than males even at balanced birthrates, so taking it too literally may further exacerbate the effects of the existing imbalance.

Experiments in domestication of men would be unavoidable, even if involving only especially feminine men employing mimicry to stay in favorable positions. Indeed, I think I recall some "are lions going to lose the mane?" type headlines exploring feminine mimicry in actual male lions.

Going all the way with the animal model, arrival of such wandering males could be associated with violence. However that implies circumstances where the presumably animalistic average strength and aggressiveness driven gender differences and traditional roles matter. Human ability to exert deadly force far surpass that of any other predator even with the most primitive of weapons; just like lionesses, human female hunter-gatherer collectives would be far from helpless.

It would be expected some women would assume traditional male roles, and given enough disruption of tradition, the men could possibly abandon our "traditional" norm entirely becoming almost exclusively flashy peacock flamboys.

With the domestic man reintroduced, and allowing for at least limited agriculture, we arrive at what doesn't differ all that much from central north European free peasant homestead.

Such subsistence farms importing only salt, metal and luxuries are extremely stable, existing in large areas of Europe for over six thousand years, and would consist of owning host family ranging from one member to several dozen including four generations and horizontal extensions up to first cousins of any generation, and up to four servant families living under the same roof (even if typically in slightly more cramped quarters on the servants side from the central kitchen). While those servant statuses might have varied wildly, over time and possibly even within the same household at , from adopted family to occasional near-enslavement, they typically are believed to have most resembled live-in paid hands, on a contract either side could terminate with an one year notice, and not differ much in status from host's own non-inheriting children or living-in peripheral relatives.

While historically such households would hold at least one and up to twenty men all ages combined, analogous in this world not always would have one, but perhaps more typically there still would be three to five, up to possibly eight for the largest fifty person strong cooperatives. We can then even allow for traces of religiously conserved male roles for cultural relatability, even if those could as well be little more than mostly ceremonial notions.

And yes, at least few of those free peasant women did grew up to be warriors, and many more were armed when self defense of the household demanded, against a raid of neighbors Viking-ing or otherwise. For larger hostilities there were elected kings in hill forts with standing guard and road police, and dedicated prepared hideouts to retreat to.

Lion prides are not a good model, I'd say. As you indicate, they would correspond to households. Humans have a far more extensive social network than just households. Households are interconnected, they live in groupings (small groups for hunter/gatherers, villages or towns for more settled populations) who are again part of a larger network of clans, tribes, nations, and a wider culture.

Apart form eusocial animals, humans are probably the most social animals on Earth, and moreover have an important distinction that a lot of intergenerational transfer of abilities passes not via the genome but through learning (because big brains and long childhoods).

While non-human animals might serve as some inspiration, they're not very good to model human societies on.

 

[atariblue]

Too long didn't read responses so if this was already addressed I apologize.

What about a society dominanted by women? A higher birth rate of female over male. Because of this men have been reduced to being kept for the purpose of breeding. Women, on the other hand have sex for pleasure (with each other) and necessity with the men for populating.

That's all I have so far. Maybe throw in a Romeo and Juliet scenario to spice it up.

 

[LupusDei]

Lion prides are not a good model, I'd say. As you indicate, they would correspond to households. Humans have a far more extensive social network than just households. Households are interconnected, they live in groupings (small groups for hunter/gatherers, villages or towns for more settled populations) who are again part of a larger network of clans, tribes, nations, and a wider culture.

True, but I specifically mentioned type of independent, spread out households that didn't form villages/towns any other way than some growing into such eventually, and had little to no additional overhead, certainly no centralized government, even the semi-feudal hill forts were later addition. In Latvia, for example, Baltic tribal nobility arrived with at least three century lag after the peasants. And yes, they arrived, in a different wave of migration.

 

[Bubo_bubo]

Yes but even in such spread out populations, there are still links. There are fairs and traders, people keep track who of the nearby households they're related to, who might owe them a favour or to whom they owe a favour, where there might be people that are attractive marriage prospects for members of the household, and so on.

And take for instance a population that to this day is still quite spread out like the Tamasheq (commonly known as Tuareg). They live in small spread out family groupings, but are still connected in clans and even larger groupings like the confederation of the Ifoghas. So even in a population as widely dispersed and on the move as desert nomads, there's a sense of belonging to a larger entity.

 

[LupusDei]

So even in a population as widely dispersed and on the move as desert nomads, there's a sense of belonging to a larger entity.

Of course the larger culture matters. The previous culture matters. Religious beliefs matter, there will be irrational things that just don't have their cost so crippling for it to be corrected. All of that will influence family structures and lifestyles, yes. But without having those givens, there's little restrictions on exploring possible nuclear elements in isolation. They will then interact in what ever way the author will want them to interact.

The story setting is a sci-fi lost world colony and I think it may be due to chemicals in the atmosphere that caused the gender imbalance after the colony was started.

Do "lost" indicate there's been some period of severed contact between the colony and the empire/civilization that established, or otherwise caused the colony to be founded?

Typically a colony would depend on metropolis for technology imports, and produce exports tailored to metropolis needs. Loss of contact might, almost certainly would crash the economy of the colony. However, the space being so vast, and realistic transit times so impossibly long, it may not be true for extraterrestrial colonies. It also depend in no small part on the type of the initial colony.

Indeed, what the primary purpose of the colony was? Some possibilities in no particular order:

• Scientific base station supporting research of [a subject or few]. Research subject may or may not matter. Predominantly a government telescope technical crew could potentially form slightly different culture than a bunch of freelance and corporate xenobiologists might.
• Forward military outpost.
• Logistics hub / waypoint.
• Mining operation, by government or large scale corporation.
• Ragtag gold digger community, possibly illegally trespassing on a nature preservation regime.
• Resort and recreation services, including exotic hunting safaris.
• Deportation / isolation camp.
• Space pirate hideout.
• Political or religious exile group's settlement.
• Space mormon settlement.
• Ark ship final destination.
• Reserve human genome preservation
• Human (slave?) farm for alien or ex-human demigod benefit.

Obviously non-exhaustive and more than one option may apply easily at the same. All might. Different options would inform different approaches, leadership abilities, range and type of expertise and even different levels of will to persist in isolation, as well as different levels of preparation to such possibility and availability of technology.

Few could even explain presence of this gender imbalance as a planned feature, like in the case of aliens farming humans for whatever purpose, then such localized effect could be seen as very convenient.

And, how welcome or hostile is the environment anyway. It's a big difference if the colony is confined to an underground shelter dependent upon some piece of ancient and/or alien technology, or if they can spread out in the forests naked.

The parent culture will matter a lot, especially if there's been not much time, loss, and destruction to erase it yet. While we're at that, how sudden or gradual the effects on birthrates was? Gradual shift or realization something's wrong with the gender ratio would let established obsolete concepts carry forward more easily than a sudden awakening to the new reality.

If there's been devolution of society, how low it goes and why? Perhaps the best shortcut to such, absent the option of conquest and terror by less advanced but military superior neighbor, is society collapse through extreme inequality. Inequality grows, always, absent catastrophic events that reduce it. If it reaches a point the tops completely detach from the masses, they can take technology with them, especially if the lows destroyed the few on top in anger. The opposite could be depression and laziness in a paradise world that offers no challenge and requires no effort.

And of course, who said the planet is uniform, united and coherent? There easily could be both relic silver tower city with limited reach and constant technological crisis and a bunch of neo-savages hiding in the jungle nude just because they can get away with it.

 

[Bramblethorn]

A biological point I'd like to make is about breeding populations.
The growth of a breeding populations is limited not by the number of individuals, but by the number of females, especially in species with a long gestation period like humans, with only rarely multiple births.

Yes and no. The number of children you can birth is limited by the number of people capable of carrying them, but the number you can raise is limited by your ability to feed and care for them. The latter has more to do with the number of adults, and with complex stuff like social systems and resource availability, than specifically with how many wombs one has available.

Think about the results of China's "one-child" policy. The result was way more males and a shortage of women, leading to a very competitive environment where women are in high demand but short supply. The angry and frustrated men have started sourcing women from other nearby countries - not always willingly - to make up the shortage.

https://shoebat.com/2018/07/31/mill...napping-and-trafficking-women-for-sex-slaves/

Erm... while China does have serious issues related to post-OCP gender imbalances, I would not be taking shoebat.com as a reliable source of information. The leading article on that site is a piece about how gay pride signals the coming of the End Times. Its owner, Walid Shoebat, seems to have a patchy relationship with the truth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walid_Shoebat

This is why I proposed to Probus888 that the overpopulated women hold positions of power, while men become precious commodities.

You're putting the cart before the horse here. China was already a male-dominated society, had been since long before the OCP came in. Boys were seen as more valuable than girls, and that's precisely why people responded to the OCP by selectively aborting girls to ensure that their one child was a boy.

There is no simple rule that says that the more common gender will be more (or less) powerful. Very often gender ratios are driven by power differences, more than the other way around, and even there the direction in which they're driven depends on details of the society.

For example, fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints communities are strongly patriarchal. But in that case, it's led to having more women than men. Without a one-child policy, people don't have to choose between having daughters and sons, so they have lots of kids. But because elders are expected to have multiple wives, there aren't enough women to go around. So they marry teenage girls, and they drive surplus boys out of the community.

One patriarchal society with more males than females; another with more females than males. Both caused by that patriarchy, but going in opposite directions because of other differences in their situation.

 

[Bubo_bubo]

Yes and no. The number of children you can birth is limited by the number of people capable of carrying them, but the number you can raise is limited by your ability to feed and care for them. The latter has more to do with the number of adults, and with complex stuff like social systems and resource availability, than specifically with how many wombs one has available.

But to raise children you must birth them first, so the number of women sets kind of a hard limit (this apart from issues that much of the raising is still done by female adults, as is often much the more efficient resource gathering (gathering vs hunting for instance). And most of the work).

For our OP I have worked out in my head a sort of society that might reflect a little the gender imbalance. Rather than going harem more based on polygamous marriage.
- Society is pre-modern technology level (say something like late medieval/early renaissance Europe)
- Most of the population is rural and lives in villages (a few hundred inhabitants)
- Villages are organised in two main units: households, and the Lodge
- Households are centred around a man, who owns the house
- Such men have most often several wives and the more wives a man has the better off he is because:
- Women own the agricultural land, because they have the manpower (adolescent and young adult children) to work it
- Competition between wives for the attention of the husband is rife as is jockeying for the position of favourite,
- The favourite is most often the first wife married, that is until one of the wives gives birth to son, who'll be the heir of the husband, and then she becomes favourite
- While there might be some affection, even love between a husband and his wives, in the main, marriage is an economical contract and not seen as binding for life
- That means that a woman, if she's not satisfied with her situation, can pack her things and either join another household (as wife) or go to the Lodge
- the Lodge is a large central building where women that are not attached to household can live.
- Livestock is owned by both men and women, with livestock that needs housing mostly owned by men, and livestock that can be mostly put to pasture or left to roam owned by women.
- In towns and cities households are smaller, both women and men tradespeople or merchants
- in town lodges are often organised by trade
- women are less inclined to join a household, but still get pregnant
- any "fatherless" sons are often put up for adoption by men without a heir
That's just a very large brainfart that needs some further work

 

[NewOldGuy77]

But to raise children you must birth them first, so the number of women sets kind of a hard limit (this apart from issues that much of the raising is still done by female adults, as is often much the more efficient resource gathering (gathering vs hunting for instance). And most of the work).

For our OP I have worked out in my head a sort of society that might reflect a little the gender imbalance. Rather than going harem more based on polygamous marriage.
- Society is pre-modern technology level (say something like late medieval/early renaissance Europe)
- Most of the population is rural and lives in villages (a few hundred inhabitants)
- Villages are organised in two main units: households, and the Lodge
- Households are centred around a man, who owns the house
- Such men have most often several wives and the more wives a man has the better off he is because:
- Women own the agricultural land, because they have the manpower (adolescent and young adult children) to work it
- Competition between wives for the attention of the husband is rife as is jockeying for the position of favourite,
- The favourite is most often the first wife married, that is until one of the wives gives birth to son, who'll be the heir of the husband, and then she becomes favourite
- While there might be some affection, even love between a husband and his wives, in the main, marriage is an economical contract and not seen as binding for life
- That means that a woman, if she's not satisfied with her situation, can pack her things and either join another household (as wife) or go to the Lodge
- the Lodge is a large central building where women that are not attached to household can live.
- Livestock is owned by both men and women, with livestock that needs housing mostly owned by men, and livestock that can be mostly put to pasture or left to roam owned by women.
- In towns and cities households are smaller, both women and men tradespeople or merchants
- in town lodges are often organised by trade
- women are less inclined to join a household, but still get pregnant
- any "fatherless" sons are often put up for adoption by men without a heir
That's just a very large brainfart that needs some further work

Now that is impressive! Well done, @Bubo_bubo !

 

[gunhilltrain]

Where do you think the phrase "women and children first" comes from?

It's because one man can impregnate hundreds of women in the time it takes each woman to birth one baby. Save the men and lose the women, and your civilization is fucked. Save the women and a few dudes (even older ones) and you will be fine.

So the implications of your hypothetical planet are that its population could explode in a very short time.

I know I'm digressing and making the thread drift - but women and children first, as vividly depicted in this scene from A Night to Remember (the Titanic, for those not familiar with the movie.)

It takes a while for the passengers to realize that there are not enough lifeboats (the ship's officers knew for sure, but didn't want to cause a panic). Then it starts to become obvious what is going on. Here the wife (Honor Blackman, of all people) is finally sure that her husband is lying to her and she is never going to see him again. I also like the look on Kenneth More's face (Lightoller) when he contemplates that this guy is saying goodbye to his family for the last time.

I know, a real bummer of a post.