I am now hearing about a new book titled Bare Branches: The Security Implications of Asia’s Surplus Male Population. Here is an article in The Washington Post by the authors, and a more critical piece in The New York Times. Here is a quote from one of the critics:
“I don’t believe that anyone has tested this in a systematic, worldwide comparative study,” said Ms. Ember, a social anthropologist. She said the predictions of violence based simply on the number of bare branches discounts the theory that men are often socialized to be aggressive, rather than being inherently more violent than women.
The level of socially acceptable violence varies from society to society (though I know none where women are typically the more violent sex), and one might point to the Tibetans as an example where altered socialization has been crucial to constraining the violent impulses of Tibetan males. After all, this is the nation that brought the Chinese Empire to their knees and were the terror of Central Asia, but after the conversion to Buddhism they shifted away from being a martial people. Interestingly, a similar process can be gleaned among the Mongols, who after their conversion to the Buddhist faith no longer ventured like human scythes over the steppe [1]. An observation could be made that the diversion of as many as one out of three men into a system of monastaries might have sapped the martial vigor of both peoples, while the rise of more polities on the Eurasian rim who were no longer militarily inferior to the nomads sealed off the more conventional avenues of social releaes in rapine and pillage.
In any case, societies are complex, and I believe there are myriad stable startegies, that is equilibriums, to maintain a social system. One of the critics in The New York Times article points out that the kingdom of Dahomey was highly warlike, and there was male-female equality in that society (and female warriors even from what I recall!). Similarly, I could note that ancient Sparta was known for the liberty that it gave to its women, especially in comparison to sexist Athens. From this, I could perhaps generalize that female liberty leads to a warlike society that devalues art and intellect, but of course, I know not to use this example to prove my point when there are counter-examples, and similarly, I would also be cautious of falsifying statistically couched generalizations with only a few counter-examples (that is, look at the trend line).
Instead of looking at the broad-context, it might be instructive view the issue from the individual perspective. I think most readers would agree that the pursuit of sex is a primary activity of young males. Additionally, many of the other activities seemingly unrelated to sex, acquisition of money or social prestige through professional success, are likely proximate behaviors serving to enhance status, and so lead to sex. Sans sex, it seems likely male energies must be channeled into other pursuits. A surplus of males, or scarcity of resources that results in the inability to support a family, may result in social adaptations that do not involve violence. Tibetans offloaded many young men into monastaries, and practiced polyandry. This does not mean that there aren’t other stable equilibriums, which is where the thesis above comes in.
Though I think societies with equalized sex ratios and a high status for women might be warlike (Sparta, Rome and to some extent Egypt would be examples from ancient history), societies that are highly polygynous, have skewed sex ratios and a low status for women are more likely to be warlike at a given time. Any particular social stress can be mitigated or released, but that does not falsify the reality of the stress.
1 – The Mongol tribes who were the last to be fully converted to Lamaistic Buddhism, the Oyrats folk, were the last great tribal confederation that fought the gunpower empires of Asia, and lost.
Update: Article below from The Economist on India’s sex imbalance….
Addendum: Randall has a related post.
India
Missing sisters
Apr 17th 2003 | ROHTAK
From The Economist print edition
A shortage of girls will haunt India for decades
EPA
EPA
Will there be wives for them?
IN THE district of Rohtak, a fairly well-off town in northern India’s farm belt, it is estimated that one in every six girls conceived is aborted. Modern ultrasound technology, coupled with a traditional preference for boys, has led to mass female foeticide. Progress does not help: rising prosperity, public-education campaigns and strict-looking laws have all failed to curb the practice. But the resulting dearth of females is already wreaking social damage, which can only worsen.
Demographers have long puzzled over India’s skewed sex ratio. Throughout the 20th century, it grew ever more unbalanced, from 972 women for every 1,000 men in 1901, to 927 in 1991. Encouragingly, it then climbed to 933 in 2001. This, however, masked a sharp imbalance among children under the age of seven: from 945 girls per 1,000 boys in 1991, to 927 in 2001. Data on the sex ratio at birth are scanty, because many births are not registered. Figures must be gleaned from the ten-yearly censuses, and from local surveys.
These show wide regional disparities. In the south, especially in the state of Kerala, there are many more girls. But in 48 of India’s 577 districts, the sex ratio among children is below 850. Of these, 34 are, like Rohtak, in Haryana or its neighbouring state, Punjab. In Rohtak there are 847 females for every 1,000 males, and just 796 girls for every 1,000 boys.
A strong preference for boys is common in agricultural societies. Boys inherit the family name and land, and provide an old-age insurance policy. Girls join their husbands’ families, and need dowries. When mobile ultrasound units started touring rural Haryana in the late 1980s, their advertising pitch was, appallingly, “Pay 500 rupees now and save 50,000 later.”
Pramod Gouri, director of Search, a government-financed civic-education outfit in Rohtak, offers two explanations as to why Punjab and Haryana should be so egregiously prone to female foeticide: the region’s social norms have proved remarkably immune to “modernity”; and the agricultural “green revolution” put enough money in local pockets to make sex-selection affordable. Abortion is far more prevalent among better-off, town-dwelling, higher-caste and literate women. Smaller families have, as in China, also further encouraged female abortion.
In 1994, sex tests were made illegal. But in Haryana only three cases have been filed: the law is hard to enforce, since ultrasound scans are now widespread. For doctors, there is good money—3,000-5,000 rupees ($60-100) a time—to be made from (illegal) abortions.
Already, the female shortage is making itself felt. Urmila, a district councillor in the countryside near Rohtak, says unmarried young men are turning to crime, and violence against women has increased. Some men in Haryana are buying “brides” (for between 10,000 and 20,000 rupees) from other parts of India, or Bangladesh. There are an estimated 15,000 such women. Many, though, are treated as slaves. Even their children are shunned.
Despite the shortage of brides, Urmila says that dowries have risen, not fallen. In Rohtak, a middle-class family will typically spend 600,000-800,000 rupees—several years’ earnings. Touring her district, she finds people anxiously asking her if she knows of any marriageable girls. This, she hopes, may be the first sign of a change in attitudes. But it may be too late to avoid serious social trauma.
Posted by razib at 07:38 PM