<story><title>Drafting Only Men for the Military Is Unconstitutional, Judge Rules</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/24/us/military-draft-men-unconstitutional.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>randyrand</author><text>How would that work? If there were 80 women left and only 20 men would the expectation really be that the remaining men knock up 4 women each? That doesn’t seem like it would ever fit our social norms and seems like a completely unimportant point.</text></item><item><author>WalterBright</author><text>There have been several wars where the slaughter of men was so extreme that the countries involved would have collapsed if the women were slaughtered as well, because the population could not have rebounded.&lt;p&gt;I heard long ago (sorry, no reference) that the average French soldier was a couple inches shorter in WW2 than in WW1, which was attributed to the male slaughter (though I suspect that food shortages were a more likely cause).&lt;p&gt;In France and Germany, after WW1 and WW2, it became commonplace for the women to marry foreigners and old men. I don&amp;#x27;t know if that happened in Britain as well.&lt;p&gt;Baby booms are common after the end of terrible wars. I read once that people were copulating in the streets of London after the WW1 armistice was declared.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jackpirate</author><text>In 1871, only 12% of Paraguayans were male due to massive losses in war.  Women were happy to share men in order to have babies.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.reddit.com&amp;#x2F;r&amp;#x2F;AskHistorians&amp;#x2F;comments&amp;#x2F;9hg68w&amp;#x2F;in_1871_only_about_12_of_paraguayans_were_male&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.reddit.com&amp;#x2F;r&amp;#x2F;AskHistorians&amp;#x2F;comments&amp;#x2F;9hg68w&amp;#x2F;in_18...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Drafting Only Men for the Military Is Unconstitutional, Judge Rules</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/24/us/military-draft-men-unconstitutional.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>randyrand</author><text>How would that work? If there were 80 women left and only 20 men would the expectation really be that the remaining men knock up 4 women each? That doesn’t seem like it would ever fit our social norms and seems like a completely unimportant point.</text></item><item><author>WalterBright</author><text>There have been several wars where the slaughter of men was so extreme that the countries involved would have collapsed if the women were slaughtered as well, because the population could not have rebounded.&lt;p&gt;I heard long ago (sorry, no reference) that the average French soldier was a couple inches shorter in WW2 than in WW1, which was attributed to the male slaughter (though I suspect that food shortages were a more likely cause).&lt;p&gt;In France and Germany, after WW1 and WW2, it became commonplace for the women to marry foreigners and old men. I don&amp;#x27;t know if that happened in Britain as well.&lt;p&gt;Baby booms are common after the end of terrible wars. I read once that people were copulating in the streets of London after the WW1 armistice was declared.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>WalterBright</author><text>Social norms tend to get suspended when mugged by reality. In your scenario, given no other supply of men (foreigners, old men) I would expect polygamy to become tacitly acceptable.</text></comment>