When women share a husband, physical fights between co-wives are common across cultures

Key Points:

• A cross-cultural analysis of 19 cultures with polygynous marriages found that physical fights between co-wives are common, challenging the prevailing view that female competition is mostly indirect and non-violent.
• The primary causes of co-wife conflict were competition for the husband's sexual and emotional attention (74%), material resources (37%), and social status (26%), with direct physical aggression documented in 63% of cultures studied.
• Indirect aggression strategies such as gossip and social exclusion were less common than direct confrontation, which included physical and verbal aggression, suggesting women use direct aggression when stakes are high.
• Conflict resolution often involved husband intervention or dissolution of the relationship, while preventative measures included spatial separation of co-wives and a cultural preference for marrying sisters to reduce friction.
• The study's reliance on ethnographic records limits causal conclusions and generalizability, but it highlights the flexible nature of female competition strategies depending on context and stakes.