Chapter 1: Polygamy

What is a sex-service market?

It is easiest to understand what a market is and how it works by dividing individual economic units into two broad groups according to function— buyers and sellers. Buyers include consumers, who purchase goods and services. Sellers include firms, which sell their goods and services; workers, who sell their labor services; and resource owners, who sell resources to firms. Clearly, most people and most firms act as both buyers and sellers, but we will find it helpful to think of them as simply buyers when they are buying something and sellers when they are selling something. Economists are often concerned with market definition - with determining which buyers and sellers should be included in a particular market. Sex-market is a group of buyers and sellers of sex-service. In order to understand how the market works, we have to check the resources of supply and demand in this market. To be more exact, under patriarchy, the suppliers are the fathers, who produce girls and sell them in sex-service market, and demanders are all men, who want to have sex with women, and women are just goods in the market without any feeling and subjectivity, but objects only. You would find an interesting phenomenon that polygamy was always accompanied by patriarchy, and when patriarchy collapsed, monogamy arose, or we can conclude that patriarchy must collapse if monogamy wants to arise. You must be curious why I get this conclusion. I will give you my opinion about this question later. All in all, under patriarchy fathers are sellers in sex-service market, and men are buyers during Penis-Vagina model chosen as reproduction model by God. To be honest in sex-service market, people should not be divided into men and women, but sex buyers and sex sellers, because men would be sex sellers when they provide mouth or anus to another man, and women could be sex buyers when they can discard the reproduction pattern and know how to use the dorsal root nerves as same as me. 

My first model: The sex-services circular-flow diagram

To understand how the demanders and the suppliers choose in sex-service market under patriarchy, we must find some way to simplify out thinking about all these activities. In other words, we need a model that explains, in general terms, how sex-service is organized and how participants in this game interact with one another. In following Figure 1.1, circular-flow diagram presents a visual exchange during organization of the sex-service and how dollars flow through markets among fathers and men. The economy is simplified to include only two types of decision makers—girls' fathers and men. Fathers produce girls using necessaries and time to raise girls up. These inputs are called the factors of production. Men own the factors of production and buy the girls from father for sex-services. Because of its simplicity, this circular-flow diagram is useful to keep in mind when thinking about how buyers and seller fit together.

Figure 1.1 presents the circular of sex-service. This diagram is a schematic representation of the organization of the sex-service. Decisions are made by girls' fathers and men. Fathers and men interact in the markets for sex-service (where fathers are sellers and men are buyers) and in the markets for consumption necessaries (where father are buyers and men are sellers). The outer set of arrows shows the flow of dollars, and the inner set of arrows shows the corresponding flow of girls and sex-services. In patriarchy, sexual transactions take place between fathers and men, and women are just products or goods. Keep this circular-flow diagram in mind, because it is useful to help you to understand a series of follow-up questions.

Supply-demand analysis in free sex-service market

Supply and demand are the forces that make sex-service market works. But here notice again under the patriarchal system, the buyers are men who need sex-service from girls, and the sellers are fathers who produce girls providing sex-services. The business about sex is between two rational men, and women are just goods for consumption. The market for sex-service, like most markets in the economy, is highly competitive. In this chapter, we assume that sex-service market is perfectly competitive. To reach this highest form of competition, a market must have three characteristics: (1) the goods offered by the various sellers are largely the same, and (2) there are many buyers and many sellers in the market that no single buyer or seller has any influence over the market price, and (3) firm can freely enter or exit the market. Each buyer knows that there are several sellers from which to choose, and each seller is aware that sex-service offered by his daughter is similar to that offered by other sellers. The fact is the sex-services offered by each girl seem approximately the same, and the buyers and sellers are so numerous that no single buyer or seller has any influence over the market price. So buyers and sellers in perfectly competitive markets must accept the price the market determines, they are said to be price takers. As a result, the price of a woman is not determined by any single buyer or seller. Rather, price and quantity are determined by all buyers and sellers as they interact in the marketplace. Under polygamy, each man takes the price to buy a girl as given, and each father takes the price to sell a girl as given too. We can regard polygamy as the result of perfectly competitive sex-service markets. Perfectly competitive markets are the easiest to analyze because everyone participating in the market takes the price as given by market conditions, although every woman is not exactly the same, such as someone has pretty face and S body shape but others have not, but vaginal is just a vaginal, and sexual desire always derives from newness and fresh, even in old China the man can't see the girl's face before marriage, so regarding the sex-service market as perfectly competitive market is credible hypothesis.

Why does perfectly competitive market matter? The reason is that market economies rely on relative prices to allocate scarce resources. In any economic system, scarce resources have to be allocated among competing uses. Market economies harness the forces of supply and demand to serve that end. Supply and demand together determine the prices of the sex service; prices in turn are the signals that guide the allocation of resources. Sex-service allocation, as same as other scarce resources, is determined by market price. We use supply-demand analysis to explain how a competitive market works and how supply and demand determine the prices and quantities of sex-service market. The Figure 1.2 is the equilibrium of supply and demand under patriarchy and polygamy. A market economy rewards people according to their ability to produce things that other people are willing to pay for. In any market economy, the invisible hand does not ensure that everyone has sufficient food, decent clothing, adequate healthcare, and enough sex slaves. The nature of market economy is to kick unqualified buyers and unqualified sellers out of the market. Because the amount of women is limited, not every man can own a woman for sex-service. Who gets this resource? The answer is whoever is willing and able to pay the price. Thus, in market economies, prices are the mechanism for rationing scarce resources. What coordinates the actions of the millions of people with their varying money and sex desires? What ensures that how many girls you can possess? The answer, in a word, is prices. If an invisible hand guides market economies, as Adam Smith famously suggested, then the price system is the baton that the invisible hand uses to conduct the sex-service. 

Notice that there is one point at which the supply and demand curves intersect. This point is called the market's equilibrium. The price at this intersection is called the equilibrium price, and the quantity is called the equilibrium quantity. The dictionary defines the word equilibrium as a situation in which various forces are in balance - and this also describes a market's equilibrium. The equilibrium price is sometimes called the market-clearing price because, at this price, everyone in the market has been satisfied: Buyers have bought all they want to buy, and sellers have sold all they want to sell. Notice that it doesn't mean everyone can get sex-service, even everyone wants that service. There are still some people there who can't afford the equilibrium price, and the essence of the market economy is to kick out of the market the unqualified consumers and producers. Unqualified buyers in sex service market lose nothing, because they left without sex service and without paying anything. In a rational and legal system, purchase or not are both rational choices. Those buyers who value sex-service more than the price choose to buy; buyers who value it less than the price does not. Similarly, in a rational and legal system, sale and not are both rational choices. Those sellers whose costs are less than the price choose to produce and sell women; sellers whose costs are greater than the price does not.

Consumer and producer surplus

We begin by examining the benefits that buyers and sellers receive from taking part in a market. Consumer surplus and producer surplus are the basic tools that economists use to study the welfare of buyers and sellers in a market. For simplicity, I use a linear function to represent the supply and demand curves. Emphasize again: here buyers are the men who want to buy women for sex, and the sellers are the fathers who produce girls to offer sex. The sex-service exchange happens between two rational and self-interested men, women in this deal doing nothing but goods. This analysis leads to a profound conclusion: Under patriarchy the essence of polygamy is selling daughters, and the equilibrium of supply and demand in a market maximizes the total benefits received by buyers and sellers. No consumer or producer of sex-service aims to achieve this goal, but their joint action directed by market prices moves them toward a welfare-maximizing outcome, as if led by an invisible hand. These observations lead to two insights about market outcomes: (1) Free markets allocate the supply of goods to the buyers who value them most highly. (2) Free markets allocate the demand for goods to the sellers who can produce them at the least cost. (3) Free markets produce the quantity of goods that maximizes the sum of consumer and producer surplus. 

To interpret this Figure 1.3, keep in mind that the demand curve reflects the value to buyers and the supply curve reflects the cost to sellers. Each buyer would be eager to buy sex-service at a price less than his willingness to pay, and he would refuse to buy sex-service at a price greater than his willingness to pay. Of course, every man wants to enjoy sex-service for free, but there is no free sex-service under patriarchy, because the idea of making optimal trade-offs between money and sex-service is an important theme in Polygamy. The marginal buyer is someone who would leave the market first if the price were any higher. Consumer surplus is the amount a buyer is willing to pay for a good minus the amount the buyer actually pays for it. The area below the demand curve and above the price measures the consumer surplus in sex-service market. Consumer surplus measures the benefit that buyers receive from sex-service as the buyers themselves perceive it. Consumer surplus is a good measure of economic wellbeing. 

Producer surplus measures the benefit sellers receive from participating in a market. The price given by the supply curve shows the cost of the marginal seller, the seller who would leave the market first if the price were any lower. The area below the price and above the supply curve measures the producer surplus in a market. The logic is straightforward: The height of the supply curve measures sellers' costs, and the difference between the price and the cost of production is each seller's producer surplus. Thus, the total area is the sum of the producer surplus of all sellers. Here the term cost should be interpreted as the seller's opportunity cost: the value of everything a seller must give up producing a girl. A rational seller would refuse to produce his daughters at a price less than his cost. At a price, exactly equal to his cost, he would be indifferent about producing his daughters. 

Elasticity of demand and supply curves

Elasticity is a measure of how much buyers and sellers respond to changes in market conditions. According to Law of demand: Other things equal, when the price of sex-service rises, the quantity demanded falls, and when the price falls, the quantity demanded rises. Price elasticity of demand is a measure of how much the quantity demanded of a good respond to a change. The determinants of the curve's shape of sex-service demand are as followed: Availability of Close Substitutes: (1) Hand job- masturbation, (2) Inflatable doll, (3) Necessities versus Luxuries, Necessities tend to have inelastic demands, whereas luxuries have elastic demands. Demand could be considered elastic when the price of sex service is very low, and inelastic when the price is very high. Imagine that I think every man wants to fuck women as many as possible if all women offer sex services for free. When the sex services are charged so high that vast majority of men can't afford it, they would choose the inflatable doll or hand job to solve the demand, but for the super rich, the price is not big deal. 

If demand is inelastic, then an increase in the price causes an increase in total revenue, and in opposite if demand is elastic, a decrease in the price causes an increase in total revenue. You will find two extremes of prostitution in China: those women who only offer sex to super rich men charge very high, according to Chinese media reports, a girl can get 600 thousand RMB in 3 days sex-service, although 100 thousands dollars is not big deal for an American, but lots of farmers in China can't get 100 thousands dollars in whole life; those women in poor rural areas who only offer sex to the poor guys in bottom of society only charge 10 RMB for one shot, less than 2 dollars. The different choices made by two different prostitutes are rational, which both aim at increasing the total income. Regarding the sex demand curve bowed inward to original point is credible hypothesis.

According to Law of supply: Other things equal, when the price of sex-service rises, the quantity supplied also rises, and when the price falls, the quantity supplied falls as well. The price elasticity of supply measures how much the quantity supplied responds to changes in the price. The price elasticity of supply depends on the flexibility of sellers to change the amount of the good they produce. Like sex service demand, the elasticity of supply in sex-service market is not constant but varies over the supply curve. Because a woman has a limited capacity for production in her whole life, when the price of a girl low the elasticity of supply is very high, rational fathers respond substantially to changes in the price, and they could choose to produce no girl at all. When the price increases for a little bit, fathers find it is profitable to produce a girl. As the quantity supplied rises, a household begins to reach capacity. Although the price becomes higher and higher, but a woman can only produce a girl in one year at most, so in high price supply curve becomes less elastic. Notice here: supply curve has a positive intercept in the Y-axis, and it means the cost of rearing a girl, so under patriarchy a rational father can't accept his girl to offer free sex-service, because he bears rearing costs instead of girl herself. I will talk about the details of intercept in monogamy.

Short-run VS Long-run elasticities

As same as many goods, sex-demand is much more price elastic in the long run than in the short run. People need a long time to change their habit. In general, the price elasticity of demand for a good depends on the availability of other goods that can be substituted for it. When there are no close substitutes, demand will tend to be price inelastic. In particular, there is no good substitute for sex-service in short-run. In addition, we can regard sex satisfaction as a necessity for a normal human, at least for me. It is very important to understand this point because sex-demand curve without elastic in the short-run is the reason why monogamy arose after war massacre. The following Figure 1.4 reflects how the demand curve rotates from short-run to long-run, which is also a process of seeking new substitutes. I will talk about the details in the following chapter. 

Elasticities of supply also differ from the long run to the short run. For sex-service, long-run supply is much more price elastic than short-run supply: Fathers face capacity constraints in the short run and need time to adjust their reproduction strategies. For sex-service, short-run supply is completely inelastic. In the short-run, because the girls have been produced with some sunk cost already which father can't recover back, the best counter-strategy in short-run is that girls must be on sale, but in long-run is that father refuse to produce girls, as a producer can free enter sex supply market or exit sex supply market at given market price. Thus, in the long run, the quantity supplied can respond substantially to price changes. Girls' prices behave this way because both demand and supply (especially supply) are much more elastic in the long run than in the short run. The long-run supply curve, then, simply reflects the cost of producing a girl. The following Figure 1.5 reflects how the supply curve rotates from short-run to long-run, which is also a process of exiting this industry. In nature, prohibition of abortion girl is to prohibit the rational fathers exit the supply market. All markets are subject to the forces of supply and demand. I will talk about the details of Sex-Selection Abortion later. Please keep in mind these two figures, and there are very useful to explain the idea of “Trade space for time” in the chapter of Government policy and so called “Justice”. 

The costs of producing girls

You may recall that a market is competitive if each buyer and seller is small compared to the size of the market and, therefore, has little ability to influence market prices. By contrast, if a firm can influence the market price of the good it sells, it is said to have market power. A competitive market, sometimes called a perfectly competitive market, has three characteristics: (1) There are many buyers and many sellers in the market, (2) The goods offered by the various sellers are largely the same, (3) Firm can freely enter or exit the market. As a result of these conditions, the actions of any single buyer or seller in the market have a negligible impact on the market price. Each buyer and seller take the market price as given. Apparently, we can regard polygamy as the result of perfectly or almost perfectly competitive sex-service market under patriarchy. No single seller or buyer can affect the price of a given factor, each is a price taker. The price of women (and the total quantity produced) will be determined by the aggregate supply and demand. The quantity that producers are willing to sell depends not only on the price they receive but also on their production costs. In competitive market, not surprisingly, we will find that a market supply curve is tightly linked to firms' costs of production. In long-run, equilibrium prices depend only on production costs. When production costs decrease, output increases no matter what the market price happens to be. Because their costs are lower, they would accept a lower price.

We begin with the father's objective. To understand the decisions a father makes, we must understand what he is trying to do. More likely, father decided to raise a girl to make money. To be honest, Chinese, as same as other nations, always have children for a purpose, regardless of girls or boys. One is for short-run interests; the other is for long-run interests. I don't want to go far here, and I will talk about this problem in later Chapter. Economists normally assume that the goal of any supplier is to maximize profit, and they find that this assumption works well in most cases. Under patriarchy, women are just goods to sell, and the goal of father to produce daughters is to maximize profit. What supply decision fathers have to make? It's not difficult to answer. The supplier maximizes profit by producing the quantity (Q_Max) at which marginal cost equals marginal revenue. For competitive firms, marginal revenue equals the price of the good. As long as marginal revenue exceeds marginal cost, increasing the quantity produced raises profit; as long as marginal cost exceeds marginal revenue, father must choose to stop continuing production. The price line is horizontal because the father is a price taker. 

First of all, we must admit fathers indeed bear all the costs of girls' production. Father has to buy food and clothes for his girls, and take care of them, and spent a lot of energy, time and money in this production. That is main reason in under patriarchy there is no free sex-service at all. The costs are a key determinant of its production and pricing decisions. Next, we discuss what are the costs? It is important to keep in mind one of the Ten Principles of Economics: The cost of something is what you give up getting it. Recall that the opportunity cost of an item refers to all those things that must be forgone to acquire that item. In girls' production, father He has not only explicit costs but also opportunity costs, and the total cost is the sum of the explicit costs and the implicit costs. As same as other production industry, Economic profit is an important concept because it is what motivates the fathers that produce girls. As we will see, a father making positive economic profit will stay in girls-supply business. It is covering all its opportunity costs and has some revenue left to reward him. When a father is making economic losses (that is, when economic profits are negative), he is failing to earn enough revenue to cover all the costs of production. Unless conditions change, father will eventually refuse to produce girls and exit the sex-supply market. Under patriarchy, father has the right to kill his baby girl, but he has no need to do this under polygamy because he has a better dominant strategy. Under polygamy, no father will drown his newly born daughter, and he would rather sell her than drown her because after all he has invested in the sunk cost for 10 months. Girls are always useful assets that can be sold at any time. The killing or abandonment of baby girls can only occur under monogamy. Free enter and exit is a powerful force shaping the long-run equilibrium. To understand fathers' decisions, we need to keep an eye on economic profit. Keep in mind: Cost is the highest-valued option forgone. Total costs include fixed costs and variable costs. In girls' production, variable costs are much bigger than fixed costs. One thing I have to emphases here: because of the cycle of girls’ production is very long; in general father has to raise a girl more than 10 year, and once something bad happens to girls, father has to bear sunk cost. 

Consumer choice

The goal of this section is to understand how a consumer makes choices. Sex-service, as a normal good or service, must obey the law that “more is better than less”. Apparently, men prefer vaginal or month, rather than his own hand. Consequently, men always want to possess women as many as possible. In addition, men are never satisfied or satiated; more is always better, even if just a little better. You may have heard the old saying, “There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.” There are two ways in satisfaction: One is self-satisfaction, and the other is trading with others. Masturbation belongs to the former while prostitution belongs to the latter. Keep in mind that the most important principle in microeconomics: People face trade-offs, so to get sex-service from a woman that men like, they usually have to give up money that they own in patriarchy, where there is no free sex-service under patriarchy. Making decisions requires trading off one goal against another. 

The budget constraint means what the consumer can afford. People consume less than they desire because their spending is constrained, or limited, by their income. We begin our study of consumer choice by examining this link between income and spending. We have the two pieces necessary for this analysis: the consumer's budget constraint (how much he can afford to spend) and the consumer's preferences (what he wants to spend it on). Now we put these two pieces together and consider the consumer's decision about what to buy. To keep things simple, we examine the decision facing a man in polygamy under patriarchy without any free sex-service or prostitution in the market who buys only two goods: foods and women. Let's say the price of a woman is fixed at 100 thousand RMB, which number is consistent with the real number of bride-price in China. Bride-price means you can buy a woman to use for your whole lifetime, and this woman will be your private goods, and she is not eligible for divorce in the law. But you can't buy a half women, it means the consumption of women is non-continuous. Similarly, let's say the price of foods per ton is also 100 thousand RMB, which is made up by myself. You can buy a kilogram once, and it means the consumption of foods is continuous. For simplicity, let us assure the price of a woman is exactly equal to the price of a ton of foods. In order to segment the market, we can roughly divide consumer preferences into two categories: some men prefer women, and others prefer foods. 

The above Figure 1.7 represents how a man, who has preference for women, spends money between women and foods.

When he owns money ＜ 100 thousand RMB, he can't afford a woman at all, and his only choice is to feed our stomachs first.

When 100 ≤ he owns money ＜ 170 thousand RMB, he can afford a women, but his preference determines his choice is not going to buy a woman, but continue to buy foods.

When he owns money = 170 thousand RMB, he reaches the P₁´point. Now his optimal strategy is to give up 1 ton of foods to get 1 woman. P₁´and P₁ are equivalent. As the result, he spends 100 thousand RMB on buying women and 70 thousand RMB on food.

When 170 ＜ he owns money ＜ 290 thousand RMB, his optimal strategy is to buy 1 woman with 100 thousands RMB and foods with all money left.

When he owns money = 290 thousand RMB, he reaches the P₂´point. Now his optimal strategy is to give up 2 ton of foods to get 2 women. P₂´and P₂ are equivalent. As the result, he spends 200 thousand RMB on buying women and 90 thousand RMB on food.

When 290 ＜ he owns money ＜ 420 thousand RMB, his optimal strategy is to buy 2 woman with 200 thousands RMB and foods with all money left.

When he owns money = 420 thousand RMB, he reaches the P₃´point. Now his optimal strategy is to give up 3 ton of foods to get 3 women. P₃´and P₃ are equivalent. As the result, he spends 300 thousand RMB on buying women and 120 thousand RMB on food.

The green line is choice made by a rational man who has preference for women. Because of the non-continuity of consuming women, rational choice line is non-continuous as well. Next, we are going to examine a little bit different choice line made by a man who has preference for foods.

The above Figure 1.8 represents how a man, who has preference for foods, spends money between women and foods. The two figures are roughly the same, and I don't waste your time here to repeat the details again. One thing I want to address here: because of different preferences, you would find that in first figure the man starts to buy a woman when he owns 170 thousand RMB, but in second figure the man starts to buy a woman when he owns 350 thousand RMB. Apparently, the man in first figure prefers women much more than the man in second figure at any given same budget constraint. Like I said bride-price is not cheap in Chinese history, what if a man needs a female sex-service when they are not at P₁, P₂ or P₃ point? Prostitution must exist as a supplement under polygamy. Essentially prostitution is a way of breaking up the whole into parts. It is like that you have to rent a house rather than buy a house when you don't have enough money without any loan. The essence of prostitute is lease. A man rent a vaginal to use for one shot. 

How many women would a rich and rational man buy? In economics, utility is the satisfaction or benefit derived by consuming a product, thus the marginal utility of a good or service is the change in the utility from increase or decrease in the consumption of that good or service. Like other goods or services, sex-service also obey the law of diminishing marginal utility, meaning that the first consumption of a woman yields more utility for a man than the second and subsequent women, with a continuing reduction for greater amounts. In a perfectly competitive market, both buyer and seller are price takers, so the cost of each woman is the same no matter how many women you purchase; it is the market price. How many women a man want to buy for sex-service in polygamy? It is easy to answer. A man keeps purchasing women until marginal utility equals to the market price (See in Figure 1.9). 

Polygamy as the long-run equilibrium under patriarchy

Apparently, polygamy is the best way, as the long-run equilibrium, to allocate of scarce resources in sex-service market. Now we are going to examine what requirements needed in this long-run equilibrium. Simply speaking, polygamy + patriarchy + warfare = long-run equilibrium.

(1)    Polygamy is the first important requirement in equilibrium. No doubt that there are some short-run fluctuations in sex-service market. Short-run fluctuations in buying activity occur in all countries throughout history. Sometimes short-run fluctuations are caused by the change of aggregate demand. For example, when people get richer, the aggregate demand curve moves to the right, and then selling girls are profitable, the situations do not last long, when selling girls are making profits, fathers have an incentive to enter the market. In other words, profit encourages entry, and entry shifts aggregate supply curve to the right; when people get poorer, the aggregate demand curve moves to the left, and then selling girls are non-profitable, the situations do not last long either, when selling girls are making losses, fathers in the market have an incentive to exit. In other words, losses encourage exit, and exit shifts aggregate supply curve to the left. This process of entry and exit continues until fathers in the market are making exactly zero economic profit that new fathers have no incentive to enter, and existing fathers have no incentive to exit. One conclusion arises because free entry and exit drive economic profit to zero. All in all, polygamy is the result of sex-service market economy. 

(2)    Patriarchy is the second important requirement. Patriarchy means father hold authority over women and children, and woman are not subject, but just object as a good and throughout history they have always been subordinated to men. Women are sold as private goods from father to husband. She is not entitled to choose a husband. Like I said before, in the service-market, the supplier is the fathers, who produce girls and sell them in sex-service market, and demander is all men, who want to have sex with women, and women are just goods in the market without any feeling and subjectivity, but objects. Women are sentimental, not rational, but any deal must occur between two rational people. I will talk about a confused situation between the sexes is due to the disintegration of patriarchy in next Chapter. 

(3)    Warfare is the last requirement. In human long history, war almost never stopped. What is the result of wars? Death. Wars always cause lots of men dead, especially in bottom of society who are unqualified consumers and factors of social unrest as well. Foreign wars help maintain the internal contract order, and otherwise, men at the bottom would start to resort to violent civilization to satisfy their lust, which is detrimental to vested interest groups, namely authorities. You will find an interesting phenomenon that the winners always kill all the men and baby boys in the loser's tribe, but keep all women and baby girls. Why is that? In short, males are useless even potential avengers, but female are useful at least as sex slaves. Apparently, the purpose of wars is not only for foods, but also in competition for sex slaves. In my eyes, the war between all authorities of various countries is nothing more than a struggle for the privilege to enslave civilians, i.e., the whip in so-called slave society and the right to print money in so-called contract civilization. There is no essential difference between the two. Some shameless man in China said that I can create a nation, if you give me enough women. This saying is shameless, but also true, but not vice-versa. Since ancient times, women are scarce resources as sex slaves and breeders.