The Mason County journal. [volume] (Shelton, W.T.) 1886-1927, 1890-03-28
POLYANDRoUs WOMEN.
Countries Where Men Play Second Fiddle :.
Affairs Matrimonial

Affairs matrimonial.
In recent letter from a member of
the expedition that is surveying the
boundary line between Alaska and Cana
da, the writer says that he has met
tribes on the Upper Yukon river where
1t is not uncommon for the women TO
have two or more husbands He speaks
of the people as miserably poor, and it
is an interesting fact that this is the
condition of the people in all parts of
the world among whom the practice of
polyandry prevails. Mr.. Rockhill found
an opportunity year ago to observe
this custom. which exists to a consider
able extent along his route in Eastern
Thibet and among the Mongols of the
Tsaidam. His explanation is that the
soil capable of culture being very linn
tied, the tribes who live chiefly bv till
age and herding find it impossible to
have one or more wives for each man.
1t is therefore the custom for the
brothers in family to have only one
wife among them, and while one brother
goes on trading journeys and another
looks after the livestock, their wife
manages the household and is the gen.
eral manager and counselor. 1t is not
from choice, then, but from necessity
that some savage peoples in all parts of
the world practice polyandry. Richer
and more comfortable savages have one
or more wives apiece or even support
harems. One would expect, therefore,
that in far northern regions, where the
conditions of life are most severe and
food is most difficult to obtain. polyan-
dry would chiefly be found; and, in fact,
nowhere is the custom more widely
prevalent than in the thinly-peopled
northern part of this continent and
among the tribes of Alaska. As far east
as Hudson's Bay, if polyandry does not
exist as an institution, there is at least
promiscuity in the married relation, and
Eskimo there, star ting on long hunting
expeditions, are often accompanied by
the wives of other members of the tribe
who are loaned for the occasion. Among
the Alaskan Eskimo every man is emit
tied to as many wives as he can get, but
as women are not infrequently in the
minority the men cheerfully accommo-
date themselves to the situation, and
two or more of them live in hut with
one woman. In the rugged wilderness
inhabited by the Koniagas, further
south, Mr.. Bancroft says two husbands
are allowed to one woman. One of the
husbands, however, occupies an inferior
position in the household, and is lord
and master there only when the other
man is not around the premises. The
many remnants of tribes which practice
polyandry in the region of the Central
African lakes seem to owe the custom
to their misfortunes, They were preyed
upon by Arab slave dealers or stronger
tribes until they lost the larger number
of their women, the most highly priced
spoils of war, and, being unable to re-
store the numerical equality of the
sexes, each woman became the wife of
several men, and the children, calling
all the villagers father or mother, be-
longed not to the family, but to the
community. The custom of plural hus-
bands, originating in violence, finally
became a sort of social law and is re-
garded as praiseworthy. None of the
warlike and powerful tribes practice
polyandry, and it may be accepted as a
general rule that savage polygamists are
comparatively we'll to do and successful
in war, while the polyandrists form the
more miserable and helpless commune
ties.-N. Y. Sun