Robert Wright's The Moral Animal--polygyny - Essay Example

Concept of Polygyny The concept of Polygyny according to the Robert Wright’s book is the behavior of men to have more than one wife in their life for satisfying their sexual eager and reproduction capabilities. This concept is not new. In fact, the study from anthropologists dictates that many societies in the past were Polygamous in nature. Only a few were found who could allow multiple males even for a single woman but the opposite cases were the most common.The theory of Robert Wright is based on the psychology of men and women.

The nature and behavior of men is entirely different from that of woman. This difference doesn’t make any sex better than the other. Rather, this difference is necessary for creating attraction in gender for others. Robert defines the woman to be the sex that makes greater contribution towards the sex cell. Owing to having the larger sex cell, it is more precious in the regard of resources, and hence difficult to find also. Women have the capability of nurturing the reproductive cells within them for 20 times while men have far greater capability to initiate the reproduction in women.

The reproductive capability of the females is very small that makes the males to compete very much for it. As males can reproduce with one sperm per woman, they will be eager to get attracted to more females. Due to eagerness of men towards their sexual desires, they tend to marry more than one woman that sets the basis for Polygyny. Men are always on the lookout for infertile cells that are more attractive. After sometime from marriage, they start looking for another woman because their first wife is not attractive in her physical shape anymore.

The psychology of females is entirely different. They want the effective meeting with men to produce the valuable genes that can result in offspring. They are not eager for number but for effectiveness rather. Women seek partnership with those males who have greater capability to help them in nurturing the offspring. As a result, you can easily correlate the choice of women to the status of men. Thus the desire for women is to seek the mate that can provide security and greater nurturing to the offspring.

According to the Robert Wright, the genetic combination should be decided intelligently after properly analyzing the genetic environment and the status of males. After that, the partners have to choose suitable strategy for their reproduction. What females are interested in is “Male Parental Investment (MPI)”. The more the value of MPI, the securer the woman will feel with that man in nurturing the children. For males, the value of MPI is directly related to their ability of having spouse of their own choice.

The concept of Polygyny is closely related to the status of the males in the society who are marrying the females. The males with good outlook, status and bank balance are likely to attract more women. Women also feel secure becoming partner of high MPI man. MPI sets the basis for competition among men to acquire more women in their life. Work CitedWright, Robert. The Moral Animal: Evolutionary Psychology and Everyday Life. Random House Digital, Inc., 2010. Print.