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Updated: June 11, 2025
The older brother is frequently absent from home, looking after the flocks, and in his absence one of the younger brothers assumes the headship of the family. Under such circumstances we can see how the natural human instincts which would oppose polyandry under ordinary circumstances, namely, the jealousy of the male, might become greatly modified, or cease to act altogether.
Incapable of any work whatever, speaking a language not spoken in the country where they beg for their subsistence, they are the objects of general contempt, and are only tolerated out of pity for their deplorable condition, when hunger drives their mendicant bands to seek alms in the villages. Polyandry, which is universally prevalent here, of course interested my curiosity.
They have learnt to overcharge already, and use extortion in dealing, as is the custom with the people of the plains; but it is clumsily done, and never accompanied with the grasping air and insufferable whine of the latter. The Lepcha is in morals far superior to his Tibet and Bhotan neighbours, polyandry being unknown, and polygamy rare.
Now the nature of the evidence which affords a presumption that Aryans have all passed through Australian institutions such as polyandry, is of extremely varied character. Much of it may undoubtedly be explained away. For the sake of distinctness we may here number the heads of the evidence bearing on this question. We have The evidence of inference from the form of capture in bridal ceremonies.
Post, a German student of comparative jurisprudence, for example, summed up the theory by saying that "monogamous marriage originally emerged everywhere from pure communism in women, through the intermediate stages of limited communism in women, polyandry, and polygyny."
Polyandry, by the way, has even flourished in Europe, if we may believe Cæsar, who, in his De Bello Gallico, book V., page 17, writes: "Uxores habent deni duodenique inter se communes, et maxime fratres cum fratribus et parentes cum liberis." In view of all this it is impossible to hold any religion responsible for the existence of the institution of polyandry.
The story of human progress shows that in the social conflict those groups survive which have become best adapted to life conditions and so are fitted to cope with their enemies. In the story of the family male leadership proved most useful and was perpetuated, but the practice of polygyny and polyandry proved in the long run to be hurtful to success in the sturdy struggle for existence.
The scarcity of women, consequent on female infanticide, leads, also, to another practice, that of polyandry, still common in several parts of the world, and which formerly, as Mr. M'Lennan believes, prevailed almost universally: but this latter conclusion is doubted by Mr. Morgan and Sir J. Lubbock. 'Primitive Marriage, p. 208; Sir J. Lubbock, 'Origin of Civilisation, p. 100. See also Mr.
The mother would live alone with her children, the only permanent male members of the family being the sons, who would be subordinate to her. The husband would visit the wife, as is the custom under polyandry, which form of the sexual relationship Mr. McLennan believes was developed from promiscuity a first step towards individual marriage.
Under some circumstances, if all three parties agreed, he saw no objection to polygyny or polyandry. "There are some cases of hardship," he said, "which such permission would remedy. Such, for instance, would be the case where the man or woman had become the victim of a chronic disease; or, when either party should be childless, and in other contingencies that could be imagined."
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