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You get civil wars when powerful families/factions decide to gamble on violence instead of staying with whatever was the ongoing peaceful arrangement for power

You get civil wars when powerful families/factions decide to gamble on violence instead of staying with whatever was the ongoing peaceful arrangement for power sharing. The supply of foot-soldiers has little to do with it. The Roman republic had plenty of civil wars, and they had indissoluble monogamic marriage for the aristocracy. And the Persian empire, with harems, also managed to have plenty of successor conflicts. I doubt any wars were started by poor wifeless men.

mcphage 9y ago
> The Roman republic had plenty of civil wars, and they had indissoluble monogamic marriage for the aristocracy. And the Persian empire, with harems, also managed to have plenty of successor conflicts. I doubt any wars were started by poor wifeless men. You’re getting the argument backwards. It’s not “conflict => polygamy”, it’s “polygamy => conflict”. Of course other things lead to conflict as well; nobody’s claiming that all conflict leads back to polygamy. So your arguments about Rome and Persia are meaningless.