CHAPTER VI: POLYANDRY.

§ 297. Promiscuity may be called indefinite polyandry joined with indefinite polygyny; and one mode of advance is by a diminution of the indefiniteness.

Concerning the Fuegians, Admiral Fitzroy says:—“We had some reason to think there were parties who lived in a promiscuous manner—a few women being with many men:” a condition which may be regarded as promiscuity to a slight degree limited. But not dwelling on this doubtfully-made statement, let us pass to positive statements concerning what may be described as definite polyandry joined with definite polygyny. Of the Todas, we are told by Shortt that—

Akin to this arrangement, though differing in the respect that the husbands are not brothers, is that which exists among the Nairs. From several authorities Mr. M‘Lennan takes the statements that—

Here then, along with polyandry to some extent defined, there goes polygyny, also to some extent defined. And with the semi-civilized Tahitians, one of the several forms of sexual relations was akin to this. “If the rank of the wife was in any degree superior to that of her husband she was at liberty to take as many other husbands as she pleased;” though still nominally the wife of the first husband.

From these forms of the family, if the word may be extended to them, in which polyandry and polygyny are united, we pass to those forms which come under the head of polyandry proper. In one of them the husbands are not related; in the other they are akin, and usually brothers.

§ 298. Already we have seen that polyandrous households, apparently of the ruder sort, occur in tribes having also polygynous households: the Caribs, the Esquimaux, and the Waraus, having been instanced. Another case is furnished by the Aleutian Islanders, who are polygynists, but among whom, a “woman may enter into a double marriage, inasmuch as she has a right to take” an additional husband. The aborigines of the Canary Islands practised polyandry, probably not fraternal. When the Spaniards arrived at Lancerota, they found “a very singular custom. . . . A woman had several husbands. . . . A husband was considered as such only during a lunar revolution.” And to these cases of the ruder polyandry which I find among my own data, I may add others given by Mr. M‘Lennan. He names the Kasias and the Saporogian Cossaks as exemplifying it.

Of the higher form of polyandry many instances occur: Edition: current; Page: [656] sometimes co-existing in the same society with the lower form, and sometimes existing alone. Tennent tells us that—

Of other peoples definitely stated to practise this kind of polyandry, Mr. M‘Lennan enumerates, in America the Avaroes and the Maypures, and in Asia the inhabitants of Kashmir, Ladak, Kinawer, Kistewar, and Sirmor. In the remote past it existed where it is not known now. Bastian quotes Strabo as saying of the tribes of Arabia Felix that men of the same family married one wife in common. In an ancient Hindu epic, the Mahâbhârata, a princess is described as married to five brothers. And, according to Cæsar, there was fraternal polyandry among the ancient Britons.

§ 299. What are we to say about the origin and development of this type of the domestic relations?

As before contended, facts do not support the belief that it arose from female infanticide and consequent scarcity of women. We saw that it does not prevail where wife-stealing, said also to result from scarcity of women, is habitual; but that in such cases polygyny is more usual. We also saw that its frequent co-existence with polygyny negatives the belief that it is due to excess of males. True, of the Todas we read that owing “to the great scarcity of women in this tribe, it more frequently happens that a single woman is wife to several husbands.” But against this may be set such a case as that of Tahiti, where we have no reason to believe that women were scarce, and where the polyandry which was associated with polygyny, went along with other loose sexual relations—where “brothers, or members of the same family, sometimes exchanged their wives, while the wife of every individual was also the wife of his taio or friend.”

Nor can we, I think, ascribe it to poverty; though poverty Edition: current; Page: [657] may, in some cases, be the cause of its continuance and spread. It is general in some communities which are relatively well off; and though in some cases distinctive of the poorer classes, it is in other cases the reverse. As above quoted, Tennent tells us that in Ceylon polyandry prevails “chiefly among the wealthier classes;” implying that as, among the poorer classes each man has commonly one wife, if not more, the cause there is neither lack of women for wives, nor lack of ability to maintain wives.

We must rather, in pursuance of conclusions already drawn, regard polyandry as one of the kinds of marital relations emerging from the primitive unregulated state; and one which has survived where competing kinds, not favoured by the conditions, have failed to extinguish it.

§ 300. When from that form of polyandry, little above promiscuity, in which one wife has several unrelated husbands and each of the husbands has other unrelated wives, we pass to that form in which the unrelated husbands have but one wife, thence to the form in which the husbands are related, and finally to the form in which they are brothers only; we trace an advance in family structure. Already I have referred to Mr. M‘Lennan’s indication of the different results.

Where, as among the Nairs, each woman has several unrelated husbands, and each husband has several unrelated wives, not only is the paternal blood of the offspring unknown, but children of each man commonly exist in several households. Besides the fact that the only known kinship is through the woman, there is the fact that each man’s domestic interest, not limited to a particular group of children, is lost by dissipation. Maternal parenthood alone being concentrated and paternal parenthood diffused, the family bonds are but little stronger than those accompanying promiscuity. Besides his mother, a man’s only known relations are his half-brothers and half-sisters and the children of his half-sisters.

Where the unrelated husbands are limited to one wife, and where their children, though they cannot be affiliated upon their fathers individually, form a single domestic group, there is some sphere for the paternal feelings. Each husband has an interest in the offspring, some of whom may be, and probably are, his own: occasionally, indeed, being severally attributed to each by likeness, or by their mother’s statement. Though the positively-known relationships remain the same as in the last case, yet there is some advance in the formation of domestic groups.

And then, as Mr. M‘Lennan points out, where the husbands are brothers, the children have a known blood in the male line as well as in the female line. Each boy or girl in the family is known by each husband to be, if not a son or daughter, then a nephew or niece. This fixing of the ancestry on both sides evidently strengthens the family bond. Beyond the closer kinships in each group, there now arise in successive generations, alliances between groups, not on the female side only, but on the male side. And this ramification of connexions becomes an element of social strength.*

So that as, in passing from promiscuity to polyandry, we pass to more coherent and definite domestic relations, so do we in passing from the lower forms of polyandry to the higher.

§ 301. What must we say about polyandry in respect of its effects on social self-preservation, on the rearing of offspring, and on the lives of adults? Some who have had good Edition: current; Page: [659] opportunities of judging, contend that in certain places it is advantageous. It would seem that just as there are habitats in which only inferior forms of animals can exist, so in societies physically conditioned in particular ways, the inferior forms of domestic life survive because they alone are practicable.

In his work, The Abode of Snow, Mr. Wilson, discussing Thibetan polyandry in its adaptation to the barren Himalayan region, says:—

Concerning the effects on the welfare of offspring, I do not meet with definite statements. If, however, it be true that in so very infertile a habitat, a form of marriage which tends to check increase is advantageous; the implication is that the children in each family are better off, physically considered, than they would be were monogamic unions the rule: being better fed and clothed the mortality among them must be less, and the growth more vigorous. As to the accompanying mental influence, we can only suspect that conflict of authority and absence of specific paternity, must entail serious evils.

The lives of adults do not appear to be so injuriously affected as might be anticipated. Mr. Wilson says:—

He also quotes Turner as saying:—

So, too, in the narrative of Mr. George Bogle’s mission to Thibet, in Warren Hastings’ time, we read:—

§ 302. If we regard polyandry as one of several marital arrangements independently originating in the earliest societies, we shall not interpret its decline in the same way as if we consider it a transitional form once passed through by every race, as Mr. M‘Lennan apparently does.

To one of the causes he assigns for its decline, we may, indeed, assent. He points out that in some cases, as among the Kandyans, a chief has a wife to himself, though inferior people are polyandrous; and in Horace della Penna’s time a Edition: current; Page: [661] kindred difference existed in Thibet: he says polyandry “seldom occurs with noble folk, or those in easy circumstances, who take one wife alone, and sometimes, but rarely, more.” Hence, with Mr. M‘Lennan, we may infer that since in all societies customs spread downwards, imitation tends to make monogamy replace polyandry where circumstances do not hinder. But Mr. M‘Lennan, not regarding this dying out of inferior forms in presence of superior forms as the sole cause, argues that the superior forms also arise by transformation of the inferior. Taking as typical the polyandry of Ladak, where the eldest brother has a priority, and where, on his death, “his property, authority, and widow devolve upon his next brother,” (p. 199), he affiliates upon this the arrangement among the early Hebrews, under which “the Levir had no alternative but to take the widow [of his brother]; indeed, she was his wife without any form of marriage” (p. 203). And he hence infers that monogamy and polygyny, as existing among the Hebrews, had been preceded by polyandry; saying that—

It seems to me, however, quite possible to find in the customs of primitive peoples, another explanation which is much more natural. Under early social systems, wives, being regarded as property, are inherited in the same way as other property. When we read that among the “Bellabollahs (Haidahs), the widow of the deceased is transferred to his brother’s harem;” that among the Zulus, “the widow is transferred to the brother of her deceased husband on his death;” that among the Damaras, “when a chief dies, his surviving wives are transferred to his brother or to his nearest relation;” the suspicion is raised that taking possession of a brother’s wife has nothing to do with polyandry. Edition: current; Page: [662] This suspicion is confirmed on finding that in Congo, “if there be three brothers, and one of them die, the two survivors share his concubines between them;” on finding that in Samoa, “the brother of a deceased husband, considered himself entitled to have his brother’s wife;” on finding that in ancient Vera Paz, “the brother of the deceased at once took her [the widow] as his wife even if he was married, and if he did not, another relation had a right to her.” These facts imply that where wives are classed simply as objects of value (usually purchased), the succession to them by brothers goes along with succession in general. And if there needs further evidence, I may cite this—that in sundry places a father’s wives are inherited. Thomson says that among the New Zealanders “fathers’ wives descended to their sons, and dead brothers’ wives to their surviving brothers.” Of the Mishmis, Rowlatt states that “when a man dies or becomes old, it is the custom of these people for the wives to be distributed amongst his sons, who take them to wife.” Torquemada mentions provinces of Mexico in which the sons inherited those wives of their fathers who had not yet borne sons to the deceased. In his Abeokuta, Burton states that among the Egbas “the son inherits all the father’s wives save his own mother.” We learn from Bosman that on the Slave Coast, “upon the father’s death, the eldest son inherits not only all his goods and cattle, but his wives . . . excepting his own mother.” And in Dahomey, the king’s eldest son “inherits the deceased’s wives and makes them his own, excepting, of course, the woman that bare him.”

We cannot, then, admit that the practice of marrying a dead brother’s widow implies pre-existence of polyandry; and cannot accept the inference that out of decaying polyandry higher forms of marriage grew up.

§ 303. Considering the several forms of polyandry as types of domestic relations which have arisen by successive Edition: current; Page: [663] limitations of promiscuity, we must say that in this or that society they have evolved, have survived, or have been extinguished, according as the aggregate of conditions has determined. Probably in some cases the lower polyandry has not been supplanted by the higher, because the two have not so come into competition that the better results of the higher have made themselves felt. In competition with polygyny and monogamy, polyandry may, in certain cases, have had the advantage for reasons above cited: polygynic and monogamic families dying out because the children were relatively ill-fed.

On the other hand, influences like those which in some places made the superior forms of polyandry prevail over the inferior, must, in other places, have tended to extinguish polyandry altogether. Save where great restriction of the food-supply over a considerable area, rendered multiplication disadvantageous, polyandric societies, producing fewer members available for offence and defence, naturally gave way before societies having family-arrangements more favourable to increase. This is probably the chief reason why polyandry, once common, has become comparatively infrequent. Other things equal, this inferior family-type has yielded to superior family-types; both because of its inferior fertility, and because of the smaller family-cohesion, and consequently smaller social cohesion, resulting from it.