China

Polyandry in Tibet: fraternal polyandry today

PThe practice of polyandry or polyandry is slowly dying because of the irrelevance of its existence in the modern world. However, a certain minority of the population still adheres to it due to local socio-economic living conditions and the traditional way of life. Tibet, as part of China, belongs to those regions of our planet where polyandry is allowed.

On the origins of fraternal polyandry in Tibet

Speaking about which country allowed polyandry, one can answer that China is one of such countries. But at the same time, you need to understand that we are talking exclusively about Tibet.

Tibet began to be considered the territories of the People's Republic of China at the entrance of military expansion in 1950 of the XX century. As a result, today Tibet is administratively represented within China in the form of the Tibet Autonomous Region, as well as independent territorial entities within individual provinces. China. There are four such provinces: Qinghai, Yunnan, Gansu, and Sichuan.

However Tibetans, Sherpas, Ladakhis, Mustangs and other Himalayan peoples in remote areas of Tibet still practice polyandry, in which a woman can have two or more husbands. And what is another name for polyandry?

Polyandry - is a form of polygamy in which a woman legally has two, three or more official spouses. Polyandry is the opposite of polygyny, in which one man has two or more wives.

In general, when a family consists of several spouses of different sexes, then such a marriage is also called a joint or group marriage.

Residents of Western society may consider the emergence of such a Tibetan practice exotic and strange. However, they did not have to survive in harsh conditions due to high altitude, food shortages and a minimum of livelihood.

How families lived and live with several husbands and one wife

In most such families in Tibet, the husbands are brothers. This union is called fraternal or adelphic polyandry. Sometimes children don't know exactly who their real fathers are.

Polyandry in Tibet
Adelphic polyandry in family relations of Tibetans

Tibetan women have traditionally, but certainly not always, lived with one brother at one time, while the other husbands took care of family affairs outside the home. These could be “military affairs” related to the defense of the territory, grazing animals on distant fertile lands, family trading affairs, or a temporary visit to the monastery.

Melvin Goldstein wrote: "Fraternal polyandry" is one of the rarest forms of marriage in the world, but it is not uncommon in Tibetan society, where it has been practiced since time immemorial. For many Tibetan social classes, it has traditionally represented the ideal form of marriage and family.” [Source: Melvin S. Goldstein, Natural History, 1987]

The older brother usually dominates the family., that is, he traditionally manages the household, but all the brothers share the work on an equal footing and also have equal rights to communicate with their common wife.

Both Tibetan women and Tibetan men do not see anything strange in spending time together with different husbands. In their opinion, there is nothing dirty, scandalous or simply repulsive in this. For the woman herself, it is the norm to look at all the brothers the same way.

shepherd in the pasture
In the pasture of Tibet

Concern about the seemingly delicate question of who the father of a particular child is not characteristic of Tibetans. As a rule, no attempts are made to connect children with a specific brother-father in biological terms. And the brother-father does not show special feelings towards his child, even if he knows that he is the biological father.

What pushes a woman to polyandry in Tibet: law or tradition?

It is important to understand that the widespread practice of fraternal polyandry is not the result of any lawrequiring brothers to marry jointly. Actually there is a choice. Divorce has traditionally been relatively easy in Tibetan society.

If a brother in such a family became dissatisfied with something and wanted to leave forever, then he simply left the main house and created a new household of his own. But it wasn't that easy...

In such situations, all children remained in the main house with the remaining brother or brothers, even if it was known that the departing brother was the real father of one or more children.

women of Tibet
Tibetan women with children on holiday

own explanation by Tibetans of the choice of fraternal polyandry, as a form of polyandry, is absolutely materialistic. The exoticism, as it may seem, of such marriage unions, in many respects has a mechanism similar to the primogeniture in England of the 18th and 19th centuries.

Children of Tibet
Tibetan children on holiday

Birthright dictated that the eldest son would inherit the family estate, while the younger sons were forced to leave the family nest and look for a "job to their liking", for example, in the army or the clergy.

In a word, the custom of polyandry in Tibet was formed as an effective mechanism that controlled the process of inheritance of property and prevent land fragmentationwhich were definitely missing.

5 Comments

  1. Purely from a genetic point of view, two nephews = one son. There is kin selection in evolution - this is when it is better to help relatives than to produce your own offspring if more of your genes are transmitted. After all, relatives have a lot of your genes. And another interesting fact: identical twins have the same set of genes, that is, their children will be genetically equally related to both of them. Basically, your nephew = your son. Cool. And if you delve into cloning, then the roof will go completely

  2. Strange people, strange people, but given the hundreds of thousands of monks, the lack of fertile land and isolation from the rest of the world, this is probably how it should be

  3. The elder brother along the way is quite some kind of elder, probably no longer a destiny, so for the sake of order :))

  4. Found on the topic of land: The obvious solution for younger brothers - the creation of new fields from virgin land - is usually unrealistic. Most Tibetans live at high altitudes (above 12,000 feet) where there is very little arable land. For example, in the village of Dorje. farming ranges from 1,2900 feet (lowest point) to 13,300 feet. Above this height, early frosts and snowfall destroy the main crop of barley. In addition, due to low rainfall caused by the Himalayan rain shadow, many areas of Tibet and northern Nepal that are within the agriculturally acceptable altitude range do not have reliable sources of excitation. After all, although there is a lot of unused land in such areas, most of them are either too high or too dry.

  5. Read about polyandry "from the inside" in the book "Women of Tibet" by the modern writer Kelyan, an ethnic Tibetan, in the story "The Woman Who Had Four Husbands". This story can be found online. The heroine of the story "The Pasture's Wife", Bobo, was married to two brothers. The eldest of the husbands, Laudry, had an affair with a woman who was married to three brothers. The two older husbands of the mistress killed Laudry ... This story can only be read in a book, I did not expose it anywhere on the Internet.

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