[swombat]

I'd like to see a study comparing the happiness of close-knit, tribal, polygamous communities with close-knit, tribal, monogamous communities.

Just to nit-pick - I'm not sure how that study would help you in making your decisions. After all, you are not living in a close-knit tribal community, but in a vast and complex global community. What works in the context of life fifty thousand years ago may very well be disastrous in today's radically different world.

So, what you really need is a study comparing the happiness levels of polygamists and monogamists in today's society, controlling for factors like how deliberate the choice is (as pointed out in the parent comment, some polygamists are so because they can't get a long-term relationship, rather than by choice). I.e. the study referred to in this article - but done properly.

</nit-pick>

[collyw]

I think the point is to at least try to have a control for the experiment. Social experiments like these are going to be difficult to eliminate all other variables, but this is probably as close as we are likely to achieve.