[148] Crooke, Tribes and Castes, iii. p. 242.
[149] Hartland, op. cit., Vol. II. pp. 156, 157.
[150] Risley, The Tribes and Castes of Bengal, Vol. I. pp. 228, 231.
[151] Rivers, The Todas; Schrott, Tras. Ethno. Soc. (New Series), Vol. VIII. p. 261.
[152] Letourneau, quoting Skinner, Evolution of Marriage, p. 78.
[153] Thurston, Ethnographic Notes in Southern India, p. 114. Polyandry has flourished not only among the primitive races of India. The Hindoo populations also adopted it, and traces of the custom may be found in their sacred literature. Thus in the Mahäbhärata the five Pándava brothers marry all together the beautiful Drûaupadi, with eyes of lotus blue (Mahäbhärata, trad. Fauche, t. II. p. 148). For an account of polyandry in ancient India the reader should consult Jolly, Gundriss der Indo-Arischen Philologie und Altertumskunde.
[154] Davy, Ceylon, p. 286; Sachot, L'Île de Ceylon, p. 25.
[155] Turner, Thibet, p. 348, and Hist. Univ. des, Voy., Vol. XXXI. p. 434; Dalton, Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal, p. 36.
[156] Hartland, op. cit., Vol. II. p. 164.
[157] This is the opinion of Bernhöft, quoted by Iwan Bloch. Marshall points out that among the Todas group-marriages occur side by side with polyandry. Bloch also notes that in the common cases where the husband has a claim on his wife's sister, and even her cousins and aunts, we find polygamy developed out of group-marriage. The practice of wife lending and wife exchange is also connected with the early communal marriage (Sexual History of Our Times, pp. 193-194). It is possible that prostitution may be a relic of this early sexual freedom. What is moral in one stage of civilisation often becomes immoral in another, when the reasons for its existing have changed.