Incubator escapee wiki

Polyandry

Article Discussion
(Redirected from Polyandrous)

Template:Short description Template:About

File:Draupadi and Pandavas.jpg
Draupadi and her five brother husbands, the Pandavas. Top down, from left to right: the twins Nakula and Sahadeva stand either side of the throne on which Yudhishthira and Draupadi sit between Bhima and Arjuna.

Template:Anthropology of kinship Template:Close relationships

Polyandry (Template:IPAc-en; Template:Etymology) is a form of polygamy in which a woman takes two or more husbands at the same time. Polyandry is contrasted with polygyny, involving one male and two or more females. If a marriage involves a plural number of "husbands and wives" participants of each gender, then it can be called polygamy,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> group or conjoint marriage.<ref name="Zeitzen">Template:Cite book</ref> In its broadest use, polyandry refers to sexual relations with multiple males within or without marriage.

Of the 1,231 societies listed in the 1980 Ethnographic Atlas, 186 were found to be monogamous, 453 had occasional polygyny, 588 had more frequent polygyny, and four had polyandry.<ref name="Atlas">Ethnographic Atlas Codebook Template:Webarchive derived from George P. Murdock's Ethnographic Atlas recording the marital composition of 1,231 societies from 1960 to 1980.</ref> Polyandry is less rare than this figure suggests, as it considered only those examples found in the Himalayan mountain region (eight societies). More recent studies have found at least four other societies practicing polyandry.<ref name="Starkweather/Hames 2012">Template:Cite journal</ref>

Fraternal polyandry is practiced among Tibetans in Nepal and parts of China, in which two or more brothers are married to the same wife, with the wife having equal sexual access to them.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref name="Gielen1993">Gielen, U. P. (1993). Gender Roles in traditional Tibetan cultures. In L. L. Adler (Ed.), International handbook on gender roles (pp. 413–437). Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.</ref> It is associated with partible paternity, the cultural belief that a child can have more than one father.<ref name="Starkweather/Hames 2012"/> Several ethnic groups practicing polyandry in India identify their customs with their descent from Draupadi, a central character of the Mahabharata who was married to five brothers, although local practices may not be fraternal themselves.

Polyandry is believed to be more likely in societies with scarce environmental resources. It is believed to limit human population growth and enhance child survival.<ref name="Gielen1993" /><ref name="Stone2006">(Linda Stone, Kinship and Gender, 2006, Westview, 3rd ed., ch. 6) The Center for Research on Tibet Template:Webarchive Papers on Tibetan Marriage and Polyandry (accessed October 1, 2006).</ref> It is a rare form of marriage that exists not only among peasant families but also among elite families.<ref>Goldstein, "Pahari and Tibetan Polyandry Revisited" in Ethnology 17(3): 325–327 (1978) (The Center for Research on Tibet Template:Webarchive; accessed October 1, 2007).</ref> For example, polyandry in the Himalayan mountains is related to the scarcity of land. The marriage of all brothers in a family to the same wife allows family land to remain intact and undivided. If every brother married separately and had children, family land would be split into unsustainable small plots. In contrast, very poor persons not owning land were less likely to practice polyandry in Buddhist Ladakh and Zanskar.<ref name="Gielen1993" />Template:Check source

In Europe, the splitting up of land was prevented through the social practice of impartible inheritance. With most siblings disinherited, many of them became celibate monks and priests.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

TypesEdit

Successional polyandryEdit

Unlike in fraternal polyandry (where a woman will receive a number of husbands simultaneously), in successional polyandry, a woman will acquire one husband after another in sequence.

This form is flexible. These men may or may not be related. And it may or may not incorporate a hierarchical system, where one husband is considered primary and may be allotted certain rights or privileges not awarded to secondary husbands, such as biologically fathering a child.

In cases where one husband has a primary role, the secondary husbands have the power to succeed the primary if he were to become severely ill or be away from the home for a long period of time or is otherwise rendered incapable of fulfilling his husbandly duties.

Successional polyandry can likewise be egalitarian, where all husbands are equal in status and receive the same rights and privileges. In this system, each husband will have a wedding ceremony and share the paternity of whatever children she may bear.

Associated polyandryEdit

Another form of polyandry is a combination of polyandry and polygyny; whereas women are married to several men simultaneously and the same men may marry other women. It is found in some tribes of Africa such as villages in northern Nigeria and northern Cameroon. Usually, one of the woman's husbands will be chosen to be the husband of a woman from another tribe who would also have many husbands; this double-polyandrous union serves to form a marital alliance between tribes.

Other Classifications: Equal polygamy, Polygynandry

The system results in less land fragmentation, and a diversification of domestic activities.

Fraternal polyandryEdit

Template:See also

Fraternal polyandry (from the Latin frater—brother), also called adelphic polyandry (from the Greek {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}—brother), is a form of polyandry in which a woman is married to two or more men who are brothers. Fraternal polyandry was (and sometimes still is) found in certain areas of Tibet, Nepal, and Northern India, as well as some central African cultures<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> where polyandry was accepted as a social practice.<ref name="Gielen1993" /><ref name="Levine, Nancy">Levine, Nancy, The Dynamics of Polyandry: Kinship, domesticity and population on the Tibetan border, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988.Template:Page needed</ref> The Toda people of southern India practiced fraternal polyandry, but monogamy has become prevalent recently.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In contemporary Hindu society, polyandrous marriages in agrarian societies in the Malwa region of Punjab seem to occur to avoid division of farming land.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Fraternal polyandry achieves a similar goal to that of primogeniture in 19th-century England. Primogeniture dictated that the eldest son inherited the family estate, while younger sons had to leave home and seek their own employment. Primogeniture maintained family estates intact over generations by permitting only one heir per generation. Fraternal polyandry also accomplishes this, but does so by keeping all the brothers together with just one wife so that there is only one set of heirs per generation.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> This strategy appears less successful the larger the fraternal sibling group is.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Some forms of polyandry appear to be associated with a perceived need to retain aristocratic titles or agricultural lands within kin groups, and/or because of the frequent absence, for long periods, of a man from the household. In Tibet the practice was particularly popular among the priestly Sakya class.

The female equivalent of fraternal polyandry is sororate marriage.

Partible paternityEdit

Anthropologist Stephen Beckerman points out that at least 20 tribal societies accept that a child could, and ideally should, have more than one father, referring to it as "partible paternity".<ref name=beckerman>Beckerman, S., Valentine, P., (eds) (2002) The Theory and Practice of Partible Paternity in South America, University Press of Florida</ref> This often results in the shared nurture of a child by multiple fathers in a form of polyandric relation to the mother, although this is not always the case.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> One of the most well known examples is that of Trobriand "virgin birth". The matrilineal Trobriand Islanders recognize the importance of sex in reproduction but do not believe the male makes a contribution to the constitution of the child, who therefore remains attached to their mother's lineage alone. The mother's non-resident husbands are not recognized as fathers, although the mother's co-resident brothers are, since they are part of the mother's lineage.

CultureEdit

According to inscriptions describing the reforms of the Sumerian king Urukagina of Lagash (Template:Circa), the earlier custom of polyandry in his country was abolished, on pain of the woman taking multiple husbands being stoned with stones upon which her crime was written.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

An extreme gender imbalance has been suggested as a justification for polyandry. For example, the selective abortion of female children in India has led to a significant margin in sex ratio and, it has been suggested, results in related men "sharing" a wife.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Known casesEdit

Polyandry in Tibet was a common practice and continues to a lesser extent today. A survey of 753 Tibetan families by Tibet University in 1988 found that 13% practiced polyandry.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Polyandry in India still exists among minorities, and also in Bhutan, and the northern parts of Nepal. Polyandry has been practised in several parts of India, such as Rajasthan, Ladakh and Zanskar, in the Jaunsar-Bawar region in Uttarakhand, among the Toda of South India.<ref name="Gielen1993" /><ref name="Palm">Template:Cite news</ref>

It also occurs or has occurred in Nigeria, the Nymba,<ref name="Palm" />Template:Clarify Irigwe<ref>Sangree, W. H. (1980). The persistence of polyandry in lrigwe, Nigeria. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 11(3), 335–343.</ref> and some pre-contact Polynesian societies,<ref>Goldman I., 1970, Ancient Polynesian Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press'</ref> though probably only among higher caste women.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> It is also encountered in some regions of Yunnan and Sichuan regions of China, among the Mosuo people in China (who also practice polygyny as well), and among some sub-Saharan Africans such as the Maasai people in Kenya and northern Tanzania<ref>The Last of the Maasai. Mohamed Amin, Duncan Willetts, John Eames. 1987. Pp. 86–87. Camerapix Publishers International. Template:ISBN</ref> and American indigenous communities. The Guanches, the first known inhabitants of the Canary Islands, practiced polyandry until Spanish colonization.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> The Zo'e tribe in the state of Pará on the Cuminapanema River, Brazil, also practice polyandry.<ref>Template:Cite thesis</ref>

AfricaEdit

File:Polyandry (bold, color).svg
Polyandry
  • In the Lake Region of Central Africa, "Polygyny ... was uncommon. Polyandry, on the other hand, was quite common."<ref>Warren R. Dawson (ed.): The Frazer Lectures, 1922–1932. Macmillan & Co, 1932. p. 33.</ref>
  • Among the Irigwe of Northern Nigeria, women have traditionally acquired numerous spouses called "co-husbands".
  • In August 2013, two Kenyan men entered into an agreement to marry a woman with whom they had both been having an affair. Kenyan law does not explicitly forbid polyandry, although it is not a common custom.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

AsiaEdit

Template:See also

  • In the reign of Urukagina of Lagash, "Dyandry, the marriage of one woman to two men, is abolished."<ref>J. Bottero, E. Cassin & J. Vercoutter (eds.) (translated by R. F. Tannenbaum): The Near East: the Early Civilizations. New York, 1967. p. 82.</ref>
  • M. Notovitck mentioned polyandry in Ladakh or Little 'Tibet' in his record of his journey to Tibet. ("The Unknown life of Jesus Christ" by Virchand Gandhi.)
  • Polyandry was widely (and to some extent still is) practised in Lahaul-Spiti situated in isolation in the high Himalayas in India.
  • Prior to Islam, in Arabia (southern) "All the kindred have their property in common ...; all have one wife" whom they share.<ref>Strabōn : Geographia 16:4:25, C 783. Translated in Robertson Smith: Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia, p. 158; quoted in Edward Westermarck: The History of Human Marriage. New York: Allerton Books Co., 1922. vol. 3, p. 154. Template:Webarchive</ref>
  • The Hoa-tun (Hephthalites, White Huns) "living to the north of the Great Wall ... practiced polyandry."<ref>Template:Usurped</ref> Among the Hephthalites, "the practice of several husbands to one wife, or polyandry, was always the rule, which is agreed on by all commentators. That this was plain was evidenced by the custom among the women of wearing a hat containing a number of horns, one for each of the subsequent husbands, all of whom were also brothers to the husband. Indeed, if a husband had no natural brothers, he would adopt another man to be his brother so that he would be allowed to marry."<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>Template:Disputed inline Associated Polyandry, or polyandry that begins as monogamy, with the second husband entering the relationship later, is also practiced<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and is sometimes initiated by the wife.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

  • Polyandry was common in Sri Lanka, until it was banned by the British in 1859.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

EuropeEdit

File:Sepulchral inscription of Allia Potestas (1st–4th century CE) - 200505.jpg
Sepulchral inscription for Allia Potestas, Museo Epigrafico, Terme di Diocleziano, Rome
  • Reporting on the mating patterns in ancient Greece, specifically Sparta, Plutarch writes: "Thus if an older man with a young wife should take a liking to one of the well-bred young men and approve of him, he might well introduce him to her so as to fill her with noble sperm and then adopt the child as his own. Conversely a respectable man who admired someone else’s wife noted for her lovely children and her good sense, might gain the husband’s permission to sleep with her thereby planting in fruitful soil, so to speak, and producing fine children who would be linked to fine ancestors by blood and family."<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

  • "The matrons of Rome flocked in great crowds to the Senate, begging with tears and entreaties that one woman should be married to two men."<ref>Macrobius (translated by Percival V. Davies): The Saturnalia. New York: Columbia University Press, 1969, p. 53 (1:6:22)</ref>
  • The gravestone of Allia Potestas, a woman from Perusia, describes how she lived peacefully with two lovers, one of whom immortalized her in his famous epigraphic eulogy, dating (probably) from the second century.<ref name="horsfall85">Horsfall, N:CIL VI 37965 = CLE 1988 (Epitaph of Allia Potestas): A Commentary, ZPE 61: 1985</ref>

North AmericaEdit

  • Aleut people in the 19th century.<ref>Katherine E. Starkweather & Raymond

Hames. "A Survey of Non-Classical Polyandry Template:Webarchive". Human Nature An Interdisciplinary Biosocial Perspective ISSN 1045-6767 Volume 23 Number 2 Hum Nat (2012) 23:149–172 DOI 10.1007/s12110-012-9144-x 12 Jun 2012.</ref>

OceaniaEdit

  • Among the Kanak of New Caledonia, "every woman is the property of several husbands. It is this collection of husbands, having one wife in common, that...live together in a hut, with their common wife."<ref>Dr. Jacobs: Untrodden Fields of Anthropology. New York: Falstaff Press, 1937. vol. 2, p. 219.</ref>
  • Marquesans had "a society in which households were polyandrous".<ref>Roslyn Poignant: Oceanic Mythology. Paul Hamlyn, London, 1967, p. 69.</ref>
  • Friedrich Ratzel in The History of Mankind<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> reported in 1896 that in the New Hebrides there was a kind of convention in cases of widowhood, that two widowers shall live with one widow.

South AmericaEdit

  • "The Bororos ... among them...there are also cases of polyandry."<ref>Races of Man : an Outline of Anthropology. London: Walter Scott Press, 1901. p. 566.</ref>
  • "The Tupi-Kawahib also practice fraternal polyandry."<ref>C. Lévi-Strauss (translated by John Russell): Tristes Tropiques. New York: Criterion Books, 1961, p. 352.</ref>
  • "...up to 70 percent of Amazonian cultures may have believed in the principle of multiple paternity"<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Religious attitudesEdit

Template:Religious text primary

HinduismEdit

File:Pandavas with Draupadi OR ayudhapurushas facing Madhu Kaitabha.jpg
Draupadi with her five husbands – the Pandavas. The central figure is Yudhishthira; the two to his left are Bhima and Arjuna. Nakula and Sahadeva, the twins, are to his right. Their wife, at far right, is Draupadi. Deogarh, Dashavatara Hindu Temple.

There is at least one reference to polyandry in the ancient Hindu epic Mahabharata. Draupadi married the five Pandava brothers, as this is what she chose in a previous life. This ancient text remains largely neutral to the concept of polyandry, accepting this as her way of life.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> However, in the same epic, when questioned by Kunti to give an example of polyandry, Yudhishthira cites Jatila of the lineage of Gautama (married to the seven Saptarishi) and Hiranyaksha's sister Pracheti (married to ten brothers), thereby implying a more open attitude toward polyandry in Hindu society.<ref name="sacred-texts">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

JudaismEdit

The Hebrew Bible contains no examples of women married to more than one man,<ref>Coogan, Michael D., A Brief Introduction to the Old Testament: The Hebrew Bible in Its Context, Oxford University Press, 2008, p. 264, [1] Template:Webarchive</ref><ref>Bromiley, Geoffrey W., The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Volume 1, Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1980, p. 262, [2] Template:Webarchive</ref> but its description of adultery clearly implies that polyandry is unacceptable<ref>Fuchs, Esther, Sexual Politics in the Biblical Narrative: Reading the Hebrew Bible as a Woman, Continuum International, 2000, p. 122, [3] Template:Webarchive</ref><ref>Satlow, Michael L., Jewish Marriage in Antiquity, Princeton University Press, 2001, p. 189, [4]</ref> and the practice is unknown in Jewish tradition.<ref>Witte, John & Ellison, Eliza; Covenant Marriage In Comparative Perspective, Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2005, p. 56, [5] Template:Webarchive</ref><ref>Marriage, Sex And Family in Judaism, Rowman & Littlefield, 2005, p. 90, [6] Template:Webarchive</ref> In addition, the children from other than the first husband are considered illegitimate (i.e., mamzers), unless he has already divorced her or died,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> being a product of an adulterous relationship.

ChristianityEdit

Most Christian denominations in the Western world strongly advocate monogamous marriage, and a passage from the Pauline epistles<ref>Template:Bibleverse</ref> can be interpreted as forbidding polyandry.

Latter-Day SaintsEdit

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}}

Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and other prominent early Mormons like Zina D. H. Young, Sarah M. Cleveland, Heber C. Kimball, and Orson Hyde, practiced religious polyandry beginning in the mid-1800s.Template:Refn The performance of new polygamous marriages in the Latter Day Saint movement's largest denomination, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), was partially ended by the 1890 Manifesto, and completely discontinued by the 1904 Second Manifesto.<ref name=":3">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=MormonPolyandry/> Existing polygamous marriages, including those of prominent LDS Church leaders, continued into the 1950s.<ref name=1950s>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

IslamEdit

According to Islamic marital law, polyandry is forbidden.<ref name="Rehman2007">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="wing_2008">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

In biologyEdit

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} Polyandrous behaviour exists in the animal kingdom, occurring for example in certain insects, fish, birds, and mammals.

See alsoEdit

Template:Div col

Types of mating, marriage and lifestyle:

Template:Div col end

ReferencesEdit

Template:Reflist

Further readingEdit

External linksEdit

Template:Sister project

Template:Close plural relationships Template:Types of marriages

Retrieved from "https://zalansite.site/mediawiki/index.php?title=Polyandry&oldid=15994"