Bontier and Le Verrier assert that, in the island of Lancerote, of the Canaries, most women had three husbands.[2829] Thunberg observes that, among the Hottentots, there were women who married two men.[2830] Dr. Fritsch mentions the existence of polyandry among the Damaras, and Mr. Theal among the mountain tribes of the Bantu race.[2831] The Hovas of Madagascar have a word to express the leave given to a wife to have intercourse with another man during a husband’s prolonged absence from home.[2832]
Until prohibited by the governor, Sir Henry Ward, about the year 1860, polyandry prevailed among the Sinhalese throughout the interior of Ceylon, one woman having in many cases three or four husbands, and in others five or six or even seven. It is recorded that the same practice was at one time universal throughout the island, except among the Veddahs,[2833] and even now it occurs in spite of government interdict.[2834] The husbands are usually members of the same family, and most frequently brothers.
Among the Todas, all brothers of one family, be they many or few, live in mixed cohabitation with one or more wives. “If there be four or five brothers,” says Dr. Shortt, “and one of them, being old enough, gets married, his wife claims all the other brothers as her husbands, and, as they successively attain manhood, she consorts with them; or, if the wife has one or more younger sisters, they in turn, on attaining a marriageable age, become the wives of their sister’s husband or husbands.... Owing, however, to the great scarcity of women in this tribe, it more frequently happens that a single woman is wife to several husbands, sometimes as many as six.”[2835] The same practice occurs among the Kurgs of Mysore.[2836] Among the Nairs of Malabar, it is the custom for one woman “to have attached to her two males, or four, or perhaps more, and they cohabit according to rules.”[2837] Polyandry is also found among the Miris, Dophlas, Butlas,[2838] Sissee Abors,[2839] Khasias,[2840] and Santals.[2841] It prevails in the Siwalik mountains, Sirmore,[2842] Ladakh,[2843] the Jounsar and Bawar hill districts attached to the Doon,[2844] Kunawar,[2845] Kotegarh,[2846] and, especially, in Tibet. This custom exists, as Mr. Wilson asserts, “all over the country of the Tibetan-speaking people; that is to say, from China to the dependencies of Kashmir and Afghanistan, with the exception of Sikkim, and some other of the provinces on the Indian side of the Himalaya, where, though the Tibetan language may in part prevail, yet the people are either Aryan in race, or have been much influenced by Aryan ideas.”[2847] Polyandry is said to occur among the Saporogian Cossacks;[2848] and Mr. Ravenstein quotes a statement of a Japanese traveller that it prevails among the Smerenkur Gilyaks in Eastern Siberia.[2849]
With the exception of the Nairs, Khasias, and Saporogian Cossacks, the husbands in almost every one of these cases are stated to be brothers. A colonel who lived among the Kulus of Kotegarh for twenty-five years assures us that, among that people, the husbands are always brothers;[2850] and, so far as Mr. Wilson could learn, the polyandry of Central Asia must be limited to the marriage of one woman to two or more brothers, no other form being found there.[2851]
A very curious kind of polyandry prevails, according to Dr. Shortt, among the Reddies. It often happens that a young woman of sixteen or twenty years of age is married to a boy of five or six years, or even of a tenderer age. After marriage the wife lives with some other man, a near relation on the maternal side, frequently an uncle, and sometimes with her boy-husband’s own father, the progeny so begotten being affiliated to the boy-husband. When he comes of age he finds his wife an old woman, and perhaps past child-bearing. So he, in his turn, takes possession of the wife of some other boy, who will nominally be the father of her children.[2852] A similar custom is said to exist among the Vellalah caste in the Coimbore district,[2853] and prevailed, till the emancipation of the serfs, among the Russian peasants, the father being in the habit of cohabiting with the wife of his son during the son’s minority.[2854] Ahlqvist mentions the occurrence of the same practice among the Ostyaks,[2855] v. Haxthausen among the Ossetes.[2856]
Passing to ancient nations, we find indications of polyandry in a hymn in the ‘Rig-Veda,’ which is addressed to the two Aświns,[2857], and in the Mahâbhârata, where Draupadi is represented as won at an archery match by the eldest of the five Pandava princes, and as then becoming the wife of all. According to Strabo, polyandry occurred in Media, and in Arabia Felix, where all male members of the same family married one woman.[2858] Ma-touan-lin states that, among the Massagetæ, the brothers had one wife in common, and when a man had no brothers he associated with other men, as otherwise he was obliged to live single through the whole of his life.[2859] We have in the Irish Nennius direct evidence of the existence of polyandry among the Picts,[2860] and of the ancient Britons Cæsar says that “by tens and by twelves husbands possessed their wives in common, and especially brothers with brothers, and parents with children.”[2861] Among the ancient Scandinavians we possibly find a trace of this custom in the mythic statement that the goddess Frigg, during the absence of her husband Odin, was married to his brothers Vili and Ve.[2862]
Among the peoples of America, Africa, and the Pacific Islands, just referred to, polyandry, in almost every case, is confined to a very small part of the population; and among the polyandrous nations of India and Central Asia it is by no means the exclusive form of marriage. Sir Emerson Tennent says that, in Ceylon, polyandry prevails chiefly among the wealthier classes, whilst, according to Dr. Davy, it is “more or less general among the high and low, the rich and poor,” other forms of marriage, however, being by no means excluded.[2863] Among the Todas, “any degree of complication in perfectly lawful wedded life may be met with, from the sample of the single man living with the single wife, to that of the group of relatives married to a group of wives.”[2864] Mr. Balfour says that “the practice of polyandry does not seem to have ever prevailed generally amongst the Nairs and many of the Teeyer of North Malabar, from Kurumbranad to Mangalore.”[2865] Among the Miris there are only a few instances of this custom.[2866] Of the Dophlas those who can afford it are polygynists.[2867] Among the Khasias, polyandry “can be said to prevail only among the poorer sort, with whom, too, it would often seem to mean rather facility of divorce than the simultaneous admission of a plurality of husbands.”[2868] Among the Santals, the wife of the eldest brother may be at the same time a wife for the younger brothers also.[2869] The Sissee Abors have often as many wives as they can afford to buy;[2870] and in the Kunawar valley, polyandry is common only in the upper part of the valley, whilst polygyny prevails in the lower part.[2871] In the Kotegarh valley, according to Dr. Stulpnagel, the practice of polyandry is not universal; it can scarcely be said to be even very common. “If diligently searched for,” he observes, “single cases of polyandry will be found in the Kôtgadh parganâ, in Kulu, in the territory of the Rânâs of Komarsen and Kaneti, and in Bussahir.... Though common enough in Kunawar at the present day, it exists side by side with polygamy and monogamy. In one house there may be three brothers with one wife; in the next three brothers with four wives, all alike in common; in the next house there may be a man with three wives to himself; in the next a man with only one wife.”[2872] Among the Butias, or Botis, of Ladakh, according to Sir Alexander Cunningham, polyandry prevails “only among the poorer classes, for the rich, as in all Eastern countries, generally have two or three wives, according to their circumstances.”[2873] In the Jounsar and Bawah pargannahs, polyandry is almost universal, but it is apparently unknown in the hills of Garhwal on the east, or those of the Simla superintendency on the west.[2874] Nowhere, except perhaps in the Neilgherry Hills, has polyandry prevailed more extensively than in Tibet; but it is not the only form of marriage. According to Captain J. D. Cunningham, “even among the Lamaic Tibetans any casual influx of wealth, as from trade or other sources, immediately leads to the formation of separate establishments by the several members of a house.”[2875] We may thus take for granted that polyandry, although frequently practised in certain parts of India and Central Asia,[2876] nowhere excludes the simultaneous occurrence of other forms of marriage. The instances of ancient Aryan polyandry in India evidently form exceptions to the general rule among the people of the Vedic period. The father of Draupadi is represented by the compilers of the epic as shocked at the proposal of the princes to marry his daughter:—“You who know the law,” he says, “must not commit an unlawful act which is contrary to usage and the Vedas.” In the Râmâyana, the giant Virâdha attacks the two divine brothers Râma and Lakshmana and their wife Sítâ, saying, “Why do you two devotees remain with one woman? Why are you, O profligate wretches, corrupting the devout sages?”[2877] And in the ‘Aitareya Brâhmana’ we read that “one man has many wives, but one wife has not many husbands at the same time.”[2878] Indeed, with the exception of the Massagetæ, the account of whom cannot be critically checked, there is no people among whom polyandry is stated to be the only recognized form of marriage.
Like polygyny, polandry is modified in directions tending towards monogamy. As one, usually the first married, wife in polygynous families is the chief wife, one, usually the first, husband in polyandrous families is the chief husband. This was the case with the Aleuts, among whom, according to Erman, the secondary husband was generally a hunter or wandering trader; and with the Kaniagmuts, among whom, as we have already seen, he acted as husband and master of the house during the absence of the true lord. Upon the latter’s return, the deputy not only yielded to him his place, but became in the meantime his servant.[2879] In Nukahiva, the subordinate partner sometimes was chosen after marriage, “but in general,” says Lisiansky, “two men present themselves to the same woman, who, if she approves their addresses, appoints one for the real husband, and the other as his auxiliary; the auxiliary is generally poor, but handsome and well-made.”[2880]
In Ladakh, according to Moorcraft and Trebeck, should there be several brothers in a family, the juniors, if they agree to the arrangement, become inferior husbands to the wife of the elder; all the children, however, are supposed to belong to the head of the family. The younger brothers have, indeed, no authority; they wait upon the elder as his servants, and can be turned out of doors at his pleasure, without its being incumbent upon him to provide for them. On the death of the eldest brother, his property, authority, and widow devolve upon his next brother.[2881] In Kamaon, too, where the brothers of a family all marry one wife, the children are attributed to the eldest brother.[2882] The same is the case in the Jounsar district, as it was formerly with the Massagetæ.[2883] Touching the polyandrous tribes of Arabia Felix, Strabo tells us that the eldest brother was the ruler of the family, and that the common wife spent the nights with him.[2884] Among the ancient Britons, as described by Cæsar, the children were regarded as belonging to him who had first taken the virgin to wife.[2885] In Tibet, the choice of a wife is the right of the elder brother, and the contract he makes is understood to involve a marital contract with all the other brothers, if they choose to avail themselves of it. The children call the eldest husband father, the younger husbands uncles.[2886] Among the Todas also, the eldest brother seems to be the real husband. “If the husband has brothers or very near relatives, all living together,” says Mr. Marshall, “they may each, if both she and he consent, participate in the right to be considered her husband also, on making up a share of the dowry that has been paid.”[2887] Again, in Spiti, where polyandry no longer prevails, the same object is attained by the custom of primogeniture, by which only the eldest son marries, while the younger sons become monks.[2888] Speaking of the Khyoungtha, a Chittagong Hill tribe, Captain Lewin observes, “After marriage a younger brother is allowed to touch the hand, to speak and laugh with his elder brother’s wife; but it is thought improper for an elder even to look at the wife of his younger brother. This is a custom more or less among all hill tribes; it is found carried to even a preposterous extent among the Santals.”[2889] In this custom there is perhaps a trace of ancient polyandry.