Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1888-12-27
1t comes to US in every conceivable
form from every quarter"
POLYANDRY IN THIBET.
A Country Where Women Have From
Two to SIX Husbands.

The most curious of the many re-
markable customs of the country with
which our latest war has brought us in
contact is polyandry. When Warren
Hastings sent his first envoy to Thibet,
more than century ago, he specially
mentioned this custom of the people as
one on which he desired information,
and since that time it has attracted the
attention of all travellers who have
come in contact with Thibetan social
life. One of the most recent writers
on the subject is the late Mr.. Andrew
Wilson, who, during his wanderin gs
among the Western Himalavas, enter
ed Thibet at Shipki, and who devotes
a chapter of his work, The Abode of
Snow" to Thibetan polygamy in
which the wife had more husbands
than one, and it prevails wherever the
Thibetan language is spoken, even in
districts on the Indian side.
Polyandry is found in many other
places, such as the interior of Ceylon,
among the Todas and Nairs of South
ern India, the Iroquois, and the abor-
lginal Tasmanians; but Thibetan poly
andry has the popularity that the hus-
bands are ell brothers, or, at the least,
very nearly related, so that the woman
becomes the wife of a whole family.
1t does not appear to be any way con-
nected with the Thibetan religion, but
to owe its existence to the poverty of
the country and the desire to limit the
population. 1t is practiced by all
classes of the population, rich and
poor, and is only superseded by po-
lygamy, or multiplicity of wives,
where the people have been much in
contact with Hindoos or Mohamme-
dams. Turner, the second of Warren
Hastings ENJOYS to Thibet, says that
the number of husbands is not restrict
residences of the Teshu Lama, he has
known family of five brothers living
happily with one wife, and he thinks
this probably is the practical limit.
Mr.. Wilson met a case in which one
woman was married to six brothers,
one of whom was quite boy; but he
thinks in most cases there are only two
husbands, not because five or six were
Objectionable, but because families
with more chan two brothers are not
common. He attributes the fact that
the system works peacefully to the
calm and unimpassioned temperament
of the people, who subordinate all in
terests to those of the family. The
children are regarded as scions of the
house rather than of any individual
member of it; all the husbands are
treated as the fathers of the children,
and there is no noticeable difference in
the relation of a child to the different
fathers. The surplus women, left by
the system are provided for in the
Lama nuuneries, where they learn to
read and copy the Thibetan scriptures
and to engage in religious services.
The choice of wife for the family is
the right of the elder brother, and the
contract he makes involves marriage
contracts with all the other brothers.
The system is said to have existed in
Thibet since prehistoric times. so that
its origin is lost in antiquity. 1t has
been suggested that it arose in a state
of society where men were forced to
be away from home for long periods,
and where the duty of protecting the
family would fall on the brothers in
turn. The notable end which it serves
is that it restricts population in re-
gions where emigration is difficult,
and where the means of subsistence
can not be easily increased. A Mo-
ravian missionary settled on the bord-
ers of Thibet defended the system to
Mr.. Wilson. not us IL good thing in the
abstract, or to be tolerated among
Christians, but rs good for the heather
in so sterile country, where anincreas-
ing population would provoke eternal
warfare or eternal want, and Captain
Turner says that 1.-THE influence of this
custom on the manners of the people,
as | could trace, has not been unfavor-
able. To the privileges of
unbounded liberty the wife here adds
the character of mistress of the family
and companion of her husbands