In comparing the two kinds of polyandry that I have just described, the patriarchal polyandry of the Thibetans, and the matriarchal polyandry of the Naïrs, the majority of sociologists consider the first as superior to the other. In so doing they seem to me not to be able to shake off sufficiently our European ideas. Doubtless the fraternal Thibetan polyandry, while leaving undecided the paternal filiation of the children, assures them a sort of collective paternal parenthood, since the fathers are of the same blood. This polyandrian family consequently differs less than the Naïr family from our own system of patriarchal kinship, which is reputed superior; but surely the liberty, and even the dignity of the woman, which must count for something, are more respected under the Naïr system, which not only does not reduce the woman to a thing possessed, that one lends to one’s friends, but gives her the power of choosing her husbands.
Fraternal polyandry being declared superior to polyandry of the Naïr type, it has been concluded that in virtue of the law of progress it must have been preceded in all times and places by the latter. As regards the greater number of cases of Thibetan polyandry, the supposition is gratuitous; it seems, however, established as far as ancient Arabia is concerned, where, thanks to a very learned treatise recently published by Mr. W. Robertson Smith, professor of Arabic at the University of Cambridge,[196] we may note the causes of polyandry and follow its evolution.
III. Polyandry in Ancient Arabia.
The chief cause of ancient Arabian polyandry was the one we find in nearly all the polyandric countries—that is to say, the infanticide of daughters.
The primitive Arabs, extremely savage and even anthropophagous, were led to adopt the custom of female infanticide by the difficulty of living in their arid country, where famines were very common. Down to the present time the nomads of Arabia suffer constantly from hunger during a great part of the year.[197]
The custom of infanticide was inveterate among the Arabs, and Mahomet was obliged to condemn it over and over again in the Koran:—“They who from folly or ignorance kill their children shall perish.[198] Kill not your children on account of poverty.[199] Kill not your children for fear of poverty; we will feed them, and you also.[200] When it shall be asked of the girl buried alive for what crime she is put to death ... every soul will then acknowledge the work that she had done.”[201]
In this last verse the Koran bears witness to the custom of killing the girls, and it indicates the process in use, which actually consisted in burying them alive. This was done openly, and often the grave of the newly-born infant was dug by the side even of the couch of the mother who had just given birth to it. According to the morality of the primitive Arabs, these acts were not only very simple, but even virtuous and generous,[202] which seems to indicate that they were indeed only precautions against famine. An Arab legend, quoted by Mr. R. Smith, paints in lively colours these atrocious customs. It relates to a chief of Tamin, who became a constant practitioner of infanticide in consequence of a wound given to his pride. He was called Caïs, and was contemporary with Mahomet. The daughter of his sister was carried off in a razzia and given to the son of her captor, as was the usage in Arabia, where the captured women made part of the booty and were divided with it. This time, when Caïs came to reclaim his niece by offering to pay her ransom, the latter, being well pleased with the adventure, refused to quit her husband. Caïs, the uncle, was mortally offended, and from that moment he interred alive all his daughters, according to the ancient custom. But one day, during his absence, a daughter was born to him, whom the mother secretly sent to a relative to save her, and then declared to her husband that she had been delivered of a still-born child. Some years later, the girl, grown tall, came to pay a visit to her mother. Caïs discovered her, while her mother was plaiting her hair and ornamenting it with cowries. “I arrived,” the father is made to say, speaking to Mahomet, “and I said, ‘Who is this young girl?’ ‘She is yours,’ replied the mother, weeping, and she related how she had formerly saved her. I waited till the emotion of the mother was calmed; then one day I led away the girl; I dug a grave and I made her lie down in it. She cried, ‘Father, what do you intend to do with me?’ Then I covered her with earth. She cried again, ‘Father, do you wish to bury me? Are you going away, and will you abandon me?’ But I continued to heap earth on her until her cries were stifled. That was the only time it has happened to me to feel pity in burying a daughter.”[203]
Such customs, combined with the sale to strangers of girls carried off in razzias, and the polygamy of the rich men, must assuredly have profoundly disturbed the numerical proportion of the sexes, and have rendered polyandry almost a necessity, which, besides, could not excite any scruple with the ancient Arabs, whose morals were very licentious. Thus the captured women often remained common to a group of relatives.[204] In the fifth century the Syrio-Roman law had even to forbid the contracts of fraternity, by which all was held in common, including the wives and children.[205]
That fraternal polyandry, called Thibetan, may have existed in Arabia, the passage of Strabo, which I have previously quoted in regard to promiscuity, would suffice to establish; but Arab writers expressly attest it, and notably Bokhâri (vi. 127), according to whom the number of polyandrous husbands was not allowed to exceed ten; besides this, various customs of more modern date, as, for example, the passing of the widow, by heritage, to the relatives of the husband, seem to arise from it. Moreover, even at the present day in Arabia, the father cannot give his daughter to another if the son of his brother demands her, and the latter has the right to obtain her at a lower price;[206] this is the right of pre-emption applied to the woman.
It seems, indeed, as if these were the vestiges of an antique fraternal polyandry, and it is in fact of fraternal or Thibetan polyandry that Strabo speaks. Has this fraternal patriarchal polyandry been preceded by a matriarchal polyandry, after the mode of the Naïrs—a polyandry which did not make the woman the property of the husbands? Without being able to give a direct proof of this, we may, however, consider it as very probable. In the present day the partial marriages, by which the women of the Hassinyeh Arabs engage themselves for some days of the week only, strongly resemble the matriarchal polyandry of the Naïrs, and temporary marriage, or mot’a, of the ancient Arabs approaches nearly to it also.