Seven thousand Sudanese 'Lost Boys', survivors of the brutal civil wars raging in several provinces, were recently resettled with adoptive families in the USA.
This humanitarian operation by the International Rescue Committee was paid for by thousands of donors, and carried out by volunteers.
But won't 7000 additional males cause (or slightly worsen) a gender imbalance here?
Actually, they are part of a much larger trend. The most obvious question is: where were the Lost Girls?? Quite possibly, they never existed:
http://www.geohive.com/earth/pop_gender.aspx
Right now, there are 33,000,000 more men than women, and the disparity is rising.
In the United Arab Emirates, there are more than twice as many (3,063,000 versus 1,433,000).
There are twice as many men of reproductive age than women.
What does this all mean?
In movies and web comics, men often try to chat up attractive women, only to be rebuffed in humiliating ways. They don't seem discouraged, though. Life's biggest and most persistent problems are not discussed; instead, people choose to believe illusions. Everyone thinks there are no limits to what they can have.
It's all about supply and demand: for some reason, popular things are also rare.
Billions of gentlemen have the same idea: those women who are considered the most attractive, based on MAXIM Magazine covers and Google search terms, have two properties: outward signs of fertility (spherical breast implants, highly defined muscle tone, tanning sprays), and the largest number of remaining reproductive years.
They also happen to form a rapidly shrinking minority of the population.
Given this reality, it's surprising how many people still defend polygamy, even though they don't practice it themselves. Under this system, a man takes several usually younger wives, sometimes only two or three, rarely more than a thousand.
It's about one man having more than his "share" (of course, often the woman decides who shares what).
Polygamy has always existed. The practice was further popularized by early Mormons, and in the HBO series Big Love. In the US, at least 30.000 wives are married to 10.000 husbands. While it remains illegal, it's no longer prosecuted.
Instead of restraining their surplus men, many polygamous groups prefer to expel them, as the FLDS movement does in Colorado City, Utah.
They are also known as 'Lost Boys'.
There is of course a simple solution for the problem of traditional polygamy: if a group wants to practice it, they should use sex selection to abort male fetuses. That way the ideal balance can be maintained.
There's no evidence fetuses have feelings in the early stages of pregnancy. Their nervous systems are much less developed than those of animals, and our society has no compunction killing those in vast numbers.
Women would still oppose such a practice, in the unlikely event it was adopted.
It might be a good idea to legalize polygamy over the age of 60, but of course the members wish to marry YOUNG women.
That's only the tip of the iceberg: the most common form of polygamy happens all around us. It's called serial monogamy.
Successful men have a series of younger girlfriends throughout their lives, while less successful men have to remain single (unless they prefer older ladies or are gay, another reason to legalize gay marriage).
Darwin called this sexual selection: sex is the reward for having genes that will be passed on to the next generation.
By definition, only one (or a few) men can have the "best" genes. Many men will have less popular genes. Some of them can still marry, if they're good providers.
This theory predicts that polygamy will be more common in less egalitarian societies, where successful men can gather a larger proportion of available resources.
The defenders of the various forms of polygamy counter that celibacy never killed anyone. It can be very frustrating for those who are forced to practice it, but male urges can always be controlled, as seen in boarding schools, prisons, and slave labor camps.
There may be increased water usage from cold showers. Heavy exercise also helps, or channeling energy into creative work.
Either way, polygamy should only become more popular as the population ages, and money is concentrated in ever fewer (wrinkled) hands . . .
It's not necessarily all bad. The opposite of polygamy is called polyandry. Usually, it's known as prostitution.
'Sex workers' rarely enjoy their jobs, but they have no alternative: if they don't obey their pimps, they're beaten up or locked inside closets.
A better type could be invented. If it were permitted, certain kinds of polyandry could help out less successful males.
Exactly defining the time, place, and circumstance of liaisons - and the required exchange mechanisms - would make life easier for those with chronic sexual shyness syndrome or just social clumsiness.
Several less popular or successful men could alternately share one woman, in a way all parties could tolerate. Each member would experience their own illusion. It would of course work best if the multiple husbands didn't know each other.
Someday, this may become a popular arrangement in China, India, and elsewhere. At the moment, it's still unthinkable. The dating scene isn't quite unfair enough yet.
When that does happen, the same free market which created the problem could also help solve it.