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The article reports on the application of the Trivers-Willard prediction that mothers in a poor condition will overproduce daughters, to wife rank within a polygynous marriage. In a large-scale sample of Rwandan mothers, it was found that lower-ranking polygynous wives have significantly more daughters than higher-ranking polygynous wives and monogamously married women. The assumptions considered in the applicability of the Trivers-Willard hypothesis to data from African polygynous societies are discussed.