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Contrary to simple beliefs of early to bed and early to rise makes you healthy, wealthy and wise, a new research suggests that polygynous households tend to have healthier and wealthier women and children.

A recent study carried out by the University of California-Davis finds that the practice of sharing a husband or rather the Polygyny practice wherein one husband can have more than one wife, in some circumstances, could actually lead to healthier and wealthier women and children, according to University Herald.

Though Polygyny is downright deplored by Human Rights and Women's Rights organizations on a global level, it is still being widely practiced among certain ethnic groups like the Maasai. The practice is considered to be derogatory to women by Human and Women's Rights Associations the world over, reports Daily Mail. However, this study has news.

For the purpose of the study, UC-Davis researchers took into account both polygynous and monogamous households across 56 villages in northern Tanzania for a comparative analysis, reports University Herald. The findings strangely revealed that the polygynous households tended to have better access to wealth and health and thus healthier and wealthier family members. Polygynous households owned more cattle and farmed more lands as compared to their monogamous counterparts.

"If you have a choice of a guy who has 180 cows, lots of land and other wives, it might be better for you to marry him rather than a guy who has no wives, three cows and one acre," explained study author Dr. Monique Borgerhoff Mulder, an anthropologist at UC Davis, as quoted on Medical Daily.