Polygyny: an indicator of nutritional stress in African agricultural societies?

Abstract

Opening ParagraphThere are many variables which affect nutritional status (Bennett and Stanfield, 1972: 7–8). A number of recent nutritional surveys have tried to assess the influence of polygyny on the incidence of malnutrition, though to date no clear relationship has been found between the two. This may partly reflect a methodological problem: accurate determination of a woman's marital status is not easily achieved by questionnaire, and this is especially true in view of the developmental instability of polygynous households (Muhsam, 1956: 16). Yet questionnaires are frequently used in nutrition surveys and they can generate large quantities of data, although Johnstonet al.have urged that studies be simplified in the interests of discovering some underlying structure (1980: 292). As a result of the massive bulk of disparate data, multivariate analysis has come to the fore in an attempt to establish significant correlations among the many variables which can be associated with malnutrition. But, as McDowell and Hoorweg point out (1975: 98), this method requires that an adequate research design be employed: it is not good enough to collect the data first and to seek the associations afterwards. The data to be collected must be carefully chosen so that pre-selected hypotheses can be tested. An anthropological perspective is very important in determining this choice of data. For example, although the term ‘polygynous’ describes a woman's marital status, it gives no indication of her position in a household relative to at least one other wife. For this reason it would be preferable to make the polygynous household, rather than the individual woman, the unit of study. Specific information could then be collected to clarify if there are constraints or advantages experienced by different wives within a polygynous household, or between wives in polygynous and monogamous households, in order to see whether these influence the nutritional status of their children.