Polyandry

Polyandry (- many, andros- man) refers to a form of marriage in which a woman has two or more husbands at the same time. The form of polyandry in which a woman is married to two or more brothers is known as "fraternal polyandry", and it is believed by many anthropologists to be the most frequently encountered form.

Human polyandry

According to inscriptions describing the reforms of the Sumerian king Urukagina of Lagash (ca. 2300 BC), he is said to have abolished the former custom of polyandry in his country, on pain of the woman taking multiple husbands being stoned with rocks upon which her crime is written.

Polyandry in human relationships occurs or has occurred in Tibet, Canadian Arctic, northern parts of Nepal, Nigeria, though probably only among higher caste women. It is also encountered in some regions of Mongolia, among the Mosuo people in China, and in some Sub-Saharan African such as the Maasai people in Kenya and northern Tanzania and American indigenous communities. Polyandry has been practised in several cultures — in the Jaunsar region in Uttarakhand, among the Nairs, Theeyas and Toda of South India, and the Nishi of Arunachal Pradesh. The Guanches, the first known inhabitants of the Canary Islands, practiced polyandry until their disappearance. In other societies, there are people who live in de facto polyandrous arrangements that are not recognized by the law. Saskatchewan Canada is the only jurisdiction in North America to have "judicially sanctioned" polyandrous unions at a family law court level.

Differences of interpretation

Polyandry is a controversial subject among anthropologists. For instance, Pennsylvania 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". On the other hand, in Tibet, which is the best-documented cultural domain within which polyandry is practised, the certain polyandrists themselves testify that the marriage form is difficult to sustain.

In Tibet, polyandry has been outlawed since the Chinese takeover of the area, so it is difficult to measure the incidence of polyandry in what may have been the world's most "polyandrous" society.

In Religion

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, Dasavatar temple.]] The Hebrew Bible prohibits polyandry in, for example, . For a woman to have sexual relations when she is married to another (which would include a situation such as polyandry) would constitute adultery, with the consequences that it would have on her status, as well as of her children from that relationship ("both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death").

Islam also bans polyandry. For example, Quran Surah Nisa’ Chapter 4 verses 22-24 gives the list of women with whom one cannot marry. Nikah Ijtimah is a pre-Islamic tradition of polyandry, which was forbidden in Islam.

There is at least one reference to polyandry in the ancient Hindu epic, Mahabharata. Draupadi marries the five Pandava brothers. This ancient text remains largely neutral to the concept of polyandry, accepting this as her way of life.

Justification

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 is particularly popular among the priestly Skye class but also among poor small farmers who can ill afford to divide their small holdings. As to the latter variety, as some males return to the household, others leave for a long time, so that there is usually one husband present.

In Canada, Saskatchewan provincial judicial authorities have "assisted, created and sanctioned" polyandry and polygamy. Justification is based upon property distribution and the recognition that simultaneous multiple conjugal unions are specifically allowed, due to section 51 of their Family Property Act. However, there is no determination in their law that polyandry specifically is allowed, rather the statute content is non genderized.

Fraternal polyandry

Fraternal polyandry (from the Latin frater - brother) is a form of polyandry in which two or more brothers share one wife or more. It is also termed adelphogamy, but this term also has other meanings.

Fraternal polyandry is found in certain areas of Tibet and Nepal, where polyandry is accepted as a social practice. The Toda people of southern India practice fraternal polyandry, but monogamy has become prevalent recently.

Apart from the famous example of fraternal polyandry in the Mahabharata between the five Pandava brothers and Draupadi, there are other instances, both in Hindu history and folklore. In contemporary Hindu society, many social scientists have expressed a fear of critical compulsion of polyandry in the near future.

Fraternal polyandry achieves a similar goal to what primogeniture did 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.

Observations and claims of polyandry

Africa

In the Lake Region of Central Africa, "Polygyny ... was uncommon. Polyandry, on the other hand, was quite common". "the Masai are polyandrous".

Europe

"According to Julius Caesar, it was customary among the ancient Britons for brothers, and sometimes for fathers and sons, to have their wives in common". "Polyandry prevailed among the Lacedaemonians according to Polybius." "(Polybius vii.7.732, following Timæus)" "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".

The gravestone of Allia Potestas, a woman from Perusia, describes how she lived peacefully with two lovers, one of which immortalized her in this famous epigrafic eulogy, dating (probably) from the second century.

Asia

In the reign of Urukagina of Lagash, "Dyandry, the marriage of one woman to two men, is abolished.". M. Notovitck mentioned about polyandry in Ladak or Little 'Thibet' in his record of his journey to Tibet. ("The Unknown life of Jesus Christ" by Virchand Gandhi). In Arabia (southern) "All the kindred have their property in common ...; all have one wife" whom they share. "in certain cantons of Media, ... a woman was allowed to have many husbands, and they looked with contempt on those who had less than five." 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." "polyandry is very widespread among the Sherpas." In Bhūtan, "polyandry is the prevailing domestic custom". "A 1981 survey ... in Muli found 52% of the marriages engaged in monogamy, 32% practiced polyandry (brothers sharing a wife), and 16% practiced polygamy (sisters sharing a husband)." The Hoa-tun (Hephthalites, White Huns) "living to the north of the Great Wall ... practiced polyandry." Among the Gilyaks of Sakhalein Island "polyandry is also practiced".

Pacific islands

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.” Marquesans had "a society in which households were polyandrous". Friedrich Ratzel in The History of Mankind 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. Additionally that in New Ireland (island) and New Britain widows were claimed as common property by all the men.

South America

"The Bororos ... among them ... there are also cases of polyandry." "The Tupi-Kawahib also practice fraternal polyandry". "...up to 70 percent of Amazonian cultures may have believed in the principle of multiple paternity"

Animal polyandry

In the field of behavioural ecology polyandry is a type of breeding adaptation in which one female mates with many males. Another similar breeding system to this is polygyny in which one male mates with many females (e.g., lions, deer, some primates and many systems where there is an alpha male).

A common example of this can be found in the Field Cricket Gryllus bimaculatus of the invertebrate order Orthoptera (containing crickets, grasshoppers and groundhoppers). The unusual thing about polyandry in nature in general is that mating is costly: in other words, why mate with more than one male when you could be better spending your time foraging? Females in this species will mate with any male close to them, including siblings. Widely shown in frogs (Agile frogs, Rana dalmatina), polyandry was also documented in polecat (Mustela putorius) and other mustelids. Related to sexual conflict, Thierry Lodé found possible explanations for polyandry include mate competition and inbreeding avoidance.

It is easier to ensure reproductive success (i.e. it is more likely that the female will have offspring)

Females may be encouraging sperm competition between males post-copulation

Multiple sperm lines may confer more variation in traits to female's offspring, this seems to be the case in the honey bee where bees from different sperm lines excel at different roles within a single hive, benefiting the health of the hive as a whole.

Females may receive food offerings from prospective mates inciting copulation

Offspring paternity is unknown and this can be beneficial in encouraging parental care and discouraging infanticide by males Polyandry also occurs in some primates such as marmosets, mammal groups, the marsupial genus' Antechinus and bandicoots, around 1% of all bird species, such as jacanas, insects such as honeybees, and fish such as pipefish. In effect polyandry will reduce the effective population size of a given closed population.

Polyandry in New World monkeys

Some New World monkeys, for example Goeldi's Marmoset, have been observed living in polyandrous groups. Although groups may contain more than one female, the dominant female suppresses ovulation in subordinates, causing her to be the only one capable of reproduction. A Goeldi's Marmoset female regularly births more than one offspring, and her eggs are separately fertilized by more than one male. Paternal investment is high among Goeldi's Marmosets, and males often carry infants on their backs even if they are not the father of the infant. It has been suggested that multiple male mates were related, and therefore cooperation in caring for each other's young is adaptive; however, researchers tagged and tracked Goeldi's Marmosets over time, and noticed that unrelated males migrated to new groups to cooperate with non relatives as well as with relatives to care for young. It has also been suggested that females select cooperative males, and that the multiple offspring of Goeldi's Marmosets require paternal care for survival.

Current research suggests that polyandry is the dominant social structure in the Callitrichidae subfamily of New World monkeys.

The callitrichidae family includes marmosets and tamarins, two groups of small New World monkeys found in South America. Wild groups usually consist of three to ten individuals, with one reproductively active female, one or more reproductive males, and several nonreproductive helpers that can be either male or female. Interestingly, cooperative polyandry is not the only mating system found in these primates. Polyandrous, monogamous, and polygynous groups can be found within the same population, and a group can even change mating systems, making it the most flexible mating system of any non-human primate. Unlike most primates who typically give birth to single young, twins are the average litter size for tamarins and marmosets. The entire group participates in raising the offspring, sharing the responsibilities of infant carrying, feeding, and grooming. The presence of nonreproductive helpers appears to be the most important factor in determining which mating system is used, as ecological and environmental variability have not been found to have a significant impact. Goldizen (1987) proposed the hypothesis that monogamy in callitrichidae should only develop in groups with nonreproductive helpers to help raise the young, and in the absence of these helpers, both polyandrous males and females would have higher reproductive success than those in lone monogamous pairs. Indeed, in studies of Saguinus fuscicollis, common name saddle-backed tamarin, no monogamous lone pairs have ever been seen to attempt a breeding cycle.

Sociobiology of polyandry

The term has gained some currency in sociobiology, where it refers, analogously, to a mating system in which one female forms more or less permanent bonds to more than one male. It can take two different forms. In one, typified by the Northern Jacana and some other ground-living birds, the female takes on much the same role as the male in a polygynous species, holding a large territory within which several males build nests. Subsequently, the female lays eggs in all the nests, and plays little part in parental care. In the other form, typified by the Galápagos Hawk, a group of two or more males (which may or may not be related) and one female collectively care for a single nest. The latter situation more closely resembles typical human fraternal polyandry.

These two forms reflect different resource situations: polyandry with shared parental care is more likely in very difficult environments, where the efforts of more than two parents are needed to give a reasonable chance of rearing young successfully.

Honeybees are said to be polyandrous because a queen typically mates with multiple males, even though mating is the only interaction that they have (the males die off, while the queen uses stored sperm for eggs she fertilizes).

Polyandry in primates and other mammals is usually correlated with reduced or reverse sexual dimorphism — females larger than males. When males of a species are much larger than females, polygyny is usually practiced. As size difference decreases, or the females are larger than males, a species is more likely to practice monogamy or polyandry. The great apes (gorillas, orangutans, and chimpanzees) are dimorphic and practice polygyny. Male and female gibbons (lesser apes) are similar in size and form monogamous pairs. Human males and females are less dimorphic in body size than other polygynous great apes.

Paternal investment is often high in polyandrous species.

See also

Marriage (conflict)

Group marriage

Polyandry in Tibet

Polyamory

Polygamy

Polygynandry

Polygyny

Sexual conflict

References

Further reading

Levine, Nancy, The dynamics of polyandry: Kinship, domesticity and population on the Tibetan border, Chicago: 1988, University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226475697, ISBN 978-0226475691

Peter, Prince of Greece, A Study of Polyandry, The Hague, Mouton, 1963

Beall, Cynthia M., and Melvyn C. Goldstein, "Tibetan Fraternal Polyandry: A Test of Sociobiological Theory," [American Anthropologist. 83(1): 898-901, 1981.]

Crook, J., & Crook, S. 1994. Explaining Tibetan polyandry: Socio-cultural, demographic, and biological perspectives.In J. Crook, & H. Osmaston (Eds.), Himayalan Buddhist villages ( pp. 735–786). Bristol, UK: University of Bristol.

Goldstein, M. C. 1971. Stratification, polyandry, and family structure in Central Tibet. Southwest Journal of Anthropology, 27, 64–74.

Goldstein, M. C. 1976. Fraternal polyandry and fertility in a high Himalayan valley in northwest Nepal. Human Ecology, 4(2), 223–233.

Lodé Thierry (2006) La Guerre des sexes chez les animaux. Eds O Jacob, Paris. ISBN 2-7381-1901-8

Smith, E.A. (1998). Is Tibetan polyandry adaptive? Methodological and metatheoretical critiques. Human Nature 9(3):225-261. Full text

Trevithick, Alan, 1997, "On a Panhuman Preference for Monandry: Is Polyandry an Exception?", Journal of Comparative Family Studies, Volume 28, #3: 154-181.

Category:Mating systems Category:Polygamy Category:Polyandry