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Abstract
This paper discusses the suitability of data on the fertility of polygamous marriages for drawing inferences on the effect of coital frequency on fertility. The author concludes that it may be possible to utilise these data, provided polygamous husbands distribute their sexual activity among all their wives, so that coital frequency for a polygamous wife is lower than that of a monogamous one.
Polygamous Arab Beduin may be supposed to have intercourse regularly with all their wives. The author shows that childlessness is higher among first and second polygamous wives than among monogamous ones, and that the average number of children per fertile woman is lower. The higher incidence of childlessness may be due to response errors, or may demonstrate that childlessness is an incentive to polygamy. But the smaller average number of children per fertile woman shows a real differential.
It is also shown that although the number of children born to polygamous women is smaller than that of monogamous women, polygamous husbands have larger families than monogamous ones.
