Denne artikel diskuterer, hvordan ægteskabsmarkedet i Sub-Sahara-Afrika, præget af praksisser som polygyni og brudepris, skaber ubalance, hvor unge mænd ikke kan finde en kone. Dette kan føre til frustration, vold og samfundsmæssig ustabilitet. Det påpeges, at politiske indgreb i ægteskabsmarkedet er nødvendige for at afhjælpe ulighed og forhindre radikalisering.
Titel på undersøgelse:
The Marriage Market as a Source of Societal Instability.
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Hele abstrakt på originalsprog:
The GIGA Focus article “Happy Ever After? The Marriage Market as a Source of Societal Instability” explores how the Neolithic shift to agriculture, beginning around 10,000 BCE, reshaped mating dynamics and social stability. As foraging gave way to farming in regions like the Fertile Crescent, surplus wealth—land, crops, livestock—concentrated among elite men, skewing reproductive access. Genetic evidence suggests a bottleneck around 8,000 years ago, with few men fathering most children, leaving many low-status males unpaired and restless. This imbalance, the article argues, fueled conflict and instability, as excluded men turned to violence or migration. Drawing on historical and modern parallels, it posits that such “marriage market” tensions, rooted in agrarian inequality, persist as a societal fault line. The Neolithic’s legacy thus lingers—wealth disparities from farming’s dawn still echo in gender and power struggles today.