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Updated: June 11, 2025
But on what grounds can such a claim be supported? It is on the evidence of licentious customs of all kinds and on polyandry, that he bases his belief in a period of promiscuity.
Among varieties of higher types, such as the Malayo-Polynesians, these feelings seem considerably developed: the Dyaks, for instance, sometimes display them in great strength. Speaking generally, they appear to become stronger with the advance of civilization. Several subordinate inquiries may be named. What are its relations to polyandry and polygyny?
Judging, however, from the habits of many or most savages, man solves the problem by female infanticide, polyandry and promiscuous intercourse; therefore it may well be doubted whether it would be by a milder method.
In Thibet it can be explained by motives of an economical nature; the small quantity of arable land falling to the share of each inhabitant. In order to support the 1,500,000 inhabitants distributed in Thibet, upon a surface of 1,200,000 square kilometres, the Buddhists were forced to adopt polyandry. Moreover, each family is bound to enter one of its members in a religious order.
Polyandry would be a natural stepping-stone to communal marriages or almost promiscuous intercourse; though the best authorities believe that this latter habit preceded polyandry. During primordial times there would be no early betrothals, for this implies foresight. Nor would women be valued merely as useful slaves or beasts of burthen.
Whence come the mulattoes and the half-breeds of all sorts? Who so credulous as to believe the fable of monogamy? What has monogamy or polygamy or polyandry to do with this matter? I assume that it is undeniable that motherhood is woman's most manifest function. If that be so, how can there be any more immorality in the exercise of it than in the process of digestion?
Another variety of marriage that has been less common than polygyny is polyandry. It is a term that signifies the marriage of one woman to several husbands, and seems to have occurred, as in the interior of Asia, only where subsistence was especially difficult or women comparatively few. Neither polygyny nor polyandry were universal, even where they were a frequent practice.
"In the Urabunna tribe, for example," say Spencer and Gillen, "a group of men actually do have, continually and as a normal condition, marital relations with a group of women. This state of affairs has nothing whatever to do with polygamy any more than it has with polyandry. It is simply a question of a group of men and a group of women who may lawfully have what we call marital relations.
Polygamy was practised, and even polyandry was said to exist; but we had no time to verify this gossip, and no right to interfere if we had. On the 6th, a lovely fall morning, we bade good-bye to Wahpoośkow, its primitive people, and its simple but ample pleasures. Autumn was upon us.
"Women are so much better now than formerly that one wife is quite enough." "You have got him well in hand, Mrs. Henderson, but " Morgan began. "But," continued Margaret for him, "you think as things are going that polyandry will have to come in fashion a woman will need more than one husband to support her?" "And I was born too soon," murmured Carmen. "Yes, dear, you'll have to be born again.
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