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Comment by kbenson | Hacker News Reader

Given that there are generally more women than men in a population, and that I don't see a reason why that trend would be lessened or reversed the farther back in history we go (I imagine it actually gets more pronounced), what happens to the women that can't be married off because there aren't enough males in a culture that doesn't support polygamy but is like you describe? I imagine some small amount would become concubines/courtesans, but could that actually account for all of the discrepancy?

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The gender ratio worldwide is currently somewhere around 101 female to 100 male (this is a bit hard to quantify, because in this group you’d also have ~3.4 intersex births). However, it is estimated that in the 17th century, somewhere around 1-1.5% of women giving birth died. So I would not take it for granted that the gender ratio was the same hundreds of years ago.

But then you have to take into account more men dying in war and whatnot.

Yep. In the old days women died in child birth, men died at war. And everyone that died was born. What comes out, by nature is nearly 50/50 - and what dies is the same ratio as born...by whatever means nature determine

You can basically assume the overall population gender ratio was 1:1, the birth ratio might have been different but that is expected.

It's a self correcting phenomenon where the ratio self selects towards 1:1.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisher%27s_principle

That is a long term phenomena - long enough that evolution by natural selection can operate. Nothing to do with less than a thousand years/a few dozen generations.

Evolution and natural selection do work on those timescales. Take a look at rapid evolution for examples.

I'm not sure how fast exactly human birth ratios swing but I would hazard a guess a few dozen generations would be enough to self select at least partially back towards the norm. How long did it take the worlds population to recover after WW1/2?

I'm happy to see evidence contrary but please don't just dismiss things as if evolution is working on geological timescales it's just not.

The birth ratio tends towards near 1:1 though it is not 1:1, the population gender ratio can be heavily skewed by different death rates, as can reproductive patterns.

i.e. did you know that genetic analyses have revealed that ancestrally, only 40% of men managed to reproduce, while 80% of women did? Maybe more relevant to what we're actually discussing.

105 men are born to every 100 women. The men die more quickly. In pre-industrial societies men out number women till age 45, then women outnumber men. The ratio is 2 to 1 at age 80, 5 to 1 at age 100.

Right now, Sweden is the nation with the oldest crossover. Men outnumber women till age 60, which is amazing.

> Given that there are generally more women than men in a population ... what happens to the women that can't be married off ... concubines

This discussion has left the realm of biology or genetics, and has turned directly to culture and society. Society has long conquered genetics and biology.

Some women don't want to marry men.

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