Polyandry in Anthropology

When people hear of marriage practices, all too often do they hear of monogamy, where a person has one partner, and polygyny, which are marriages where a man has multiple wives. Rarely, do you hear of polyandry, where a woman takes multiple husbands. Although, there are not many cultures who practice polyandry there are plenty that exist, and one those cultures is in Tibet. In Tibet there is a certain type of polyandry practiced called fraternal polyandry, meaning brothers will take the same wife. Like every other culture in this world nothing is done without a reason. There is an explanation for every practice, ritual, and belief a culture holds.

In this culture a woman would marry the brothers, go to live with them, and then the children made from this marriage would all inherit the land. In the Tibetan Himalayas polyandry was practiced for various reasons. The first being to control land and the second to control the population. In this area there is not much land that can be put to use to grow crops, so good tillable land is scarce. Next, men can have more children than women much more quickly, so polyandry prevents this and reduces the amount of heirs that the small land would have to be divided between and how many mouths that would have to be fed. The land would stay in the family and be undivided between the brothers and their children, thus preventing conflict and hunger. Polyandry also works in this society because it allows the brothers to divvy up the work, one brother could work in the home, another in the fields, and another could focus on the animals. If one brother were to leave the house another could stay behind to take care of it.

Even though this is practiced frequently the brothers are not forced into polyandry. A wife is chosen for the oldest brother and the younger brothers can choose to join the marriage if they want to. If later on in the marriage one of the brothers wants to leave they can. Once in the marriage all brothers take part in domestic duties, they do chores and they take care of the children. Whether or not they are the biological father of the children, all brothers see every child as their own, there is no favoritism. As for intercourse, they scheduled it, and the wife has to be sure to know each of her husbands and personalities to avoid conflict between them.

Today, the practice of polyandry is waning, even more so now that Tibet has made polyandry illegal. Despite this there are still some who practice polyandry. Due to the geography of Tibet, polyandry was used for survival. In our western culture this may be seen as weird but to the Tibetan people this practice was a way to make life easier and enhance their culture’s survival.