Fraternal Polyandry

Fraternal polyandry tends to adapt depending on the society in which it develops. The form of this marriage most closely aligning with the definition can be seen within the village of Limi. In this group of Tibetans, the brothers of a household would take one wife as a group, typically as soon as the eldest brother was ready for marriage (Goldstein, 1976:232). Because of this, oftentimes the youngest brother may have been significantly younger than the wife. However, the wife was expected to provide equal treatment to all brothers in an ideal form of their marriage (Goldstein, 1987:173). In this society, the eldest brother had some authority over the younger brothers, which tended to lead to some level of discomfort and frustration for younger brothers who were aggressive and independent (Goldstein, 1976:232). There were many acceptable forms of marriage within their society, however, so if a brother had the resources available to split off from the polyandrous marriage, at times they would choose to do so. In fact, it was even common for a brother to split off in times of frustration when there was an abundance of resources available to him (Goldstein, 1976:232). Another reason for potential splitting of the marriage into monogamous units with new wives was if the original, polyandrous wife had obvious preferences. Since there was a chance of a large age gap between the wife and the younger husbands, there may have been times when she was reluctant to provide the same level of intimacy and affection to these younger husbands, and other times still there were simply personality-related tensions between members of the marriage.

Another form of fraternal polyandry was seen somewhere around the mid-4th century until around the mid-8th century by the Bactrians. In this society, some brothers within a family took one wife at the same time. It was not always seen that all brothers in a family would take the same wife. Because this practice was not documented excessively well, it was debated for a while whether or not this society actually practiced this form of marriage, but Azad (2016) points to a document that refers to “three of the four grandsons of Kamird-far agreed to own the family homes and estates equally, and consented to ‘possessing’ one woman” (p.42). This woman had considerable rights within the marriage, with marriage contracts stipulating that no husband within a polyandrous marriage may take another wife or a concubine without the consent of the original wife, under punishment of a fine (Azad, 2016:45).

A central fact that is common among the various forms of fraternal polyandry is the emphasis on a lack of jealousy between the husbands. This can be seen particularly well by the Kota, a society in South India. The Kota practiced both true polygyny, in which a man married several women, as well as an interesting form of fraternal polyandry (Mandelbaum, 1938:574). In their society, it was not so much that a woman formally married several brothers, but rather that all brothers in a family had access to each other’s wives. In fact, this concept of brotherhood extended further than just biological siblings as well; the rights to each other’s wives was extended also to cousins around the same age and, in fact, all men around the same age within one “sib group” in a village (Mandelbaum, 1938:575). This led to around ten to twenty men sharing access to each other’s wives. More classical fraternal polyandry was at times practiced by the Kota for short periods as well. For example, many times all the brothers and their wives would live in their father’s house, not splitting up household resources until they began to have enough children that the family could no longer fit in the same household (Mandelbaum, 1938:574). An interesting aspect of the Kota’s culture that led to fraternal polyandry was that of “fraternal equivalence,” or the strict adherence to treating all brothers within a family equally (Mandelbaum, 1938:575). Because of this, there was a strict lack of jealousy should a brother have a sexual relationship with one of the brothers’ wives, even if she should become pregnant with the non-husband brother’s child.

Among the Shirishana, who live in the Brazilian Amazon, fraternal polyandry was less stable than in the societies mentioned above, but still the most common form of marriage that was acceptable. Fraternal polyandry would be practiced if a younger brother joined a marriage already established by his elder brother and that brother’s wife, and usually only if the younger brother did not have a wife (Peters, 1982:91). The original husband would typically sleep closest to the wife, with the other husbands sleeping only near her (Peters, 1982:91). The secondary husbands actually might have only had sexual access to the wife while the primary husband was away, asleep, or working, but would still get access occasionally and would always have secondary access to any food made by her (Peters, 1982:92). Because of the limited access to his wife, a secondary husband would typically be in search of a wife of his own, and at any point could leave the polyandrous marriage should he find another wife (Peters, 1982:91).

Fraternal polyandry is very much adapted to the society in which it develops. One common reasoning behind why brothers choose to take one wife together is that it prevents them from needing to split up familial resources (Goldstein, 1987:173). It also tended to serve as a bottleneck for population growth, as one wife for several men means that each of those men can only have children as often as the one woman is able to get pregnant. In fact, Goldstein (1976) states that there would be a 16% increase in the population of Tibetans in Limi if all unmarried women were getting married and having children at the same rate as other married women (p.230). This increase in population could potentially overwhelm the village, as there is a limited amount of fertile land available high in the Himalayas.