POLYANDRY, or POIXANDRIA, that form of polygamy which permits a woman to have several husbands. See MAnninoE. The hot-bed of polyandry is Thibet. There a wife commonly is the wife of a whole family of brothers—the elder brother being chief husband. In the Himalayan and sub-Himalayan regions adjoining and under the influ ence of Thibet it is of frequent occurrence in the same form; as in the valley of Cash mere, in Lida'., among the Koech, among the Telingese. Further s. iu ludia, we find polyandry among the Tudas of the Nilgherry hills, the Coorgs of :Mysore, and the Nayars of Malabar. We find it again off the Indian coast in Ceylon; and going east ward, strike on it as an ancient though row almost superseded custom in New Zealand, and in one or two of the Pacific islands. Going northward, we meet it again in the Aleutian islands; and taking the continent to the w. and n. of the Aleutians, it is lomat among the Koryaks, to the n. of the Okhotsk sea. Crossing the Russian empire to the w. side, we meet it among the Saporogian Cossacks; and thus have traced it at points half round the globe. This is not all; however. It is found in several parts of Africa, and it occurs again in many parts of America among the red men. We have the authority of Humboldt for its prevalence among the tribes of the Orinoco, and in the same form as in Thibet. " Among the Avaroes and the Maypures," be says, " brothers have often but one wife." Humboldt also vouches for its former prevalence in Lan (scrota, one of the Canary islands. Thus, polyandry is a phenomenon of human life. independent of race and country.—See Latham's Descriptive Ethnology (1859), vol. i. pp. 24, 28; vol. ii. pp. 398, 406, and 462; Humboldt's Personal _Narrative, Williams's transla tion, 1819, vol. v. part 2, p. 549; and chap. i. vol. i. p. 84; Hamilton's.Nein Account of the East ladies (Edin. 1727), vol. i. pp. 274 and 308; Reade's Savage Africa, p. 43; Erman's Travels in Siberia. vol. ii. p. 531; Marriage Ceremonies, by seignior Gaya (translation), 2d edition (Loud. 1698), pp. 70 and 96; Emerson `Ferment's Ceylon, 3d edition (1859), vol. ii. p. 429; Grey's Polynesian Mythology (1855). p. 81; A Summer Ramble in the Himalayas (1860); Vigne's Kashmir; Journal Asi. Soc. Bengal, vol. ix.; Asiat. Resell., vol. v.; also Mlennan's Primitive Marriage (1865); and Herbert Spencer's Principles of Sociology (1876).
From ancient history we learn that the area over which polyandry at one lime existed was even more extended; while in certain cantons of Media, according to Strabo (Ms ii. p. 798. aml see Gogmet, vol. iii. book vi. c. i.) polygynia was authorized by express law, which ordained every inhabitant to maintain at least seven wives; in other cantons, precisely the opposite rule prevailed: a woman was allowed to have many bands, and they looked with contempt on those wino had less than five. Ctesar informs
us that in his time polyandry of the Thibetan type prevailed among the Britons (De Bello lib. v. c. xiv.). We find direct evidence of its existence among the Picts in the Irish Nennius App. ii., not to mention the traces of it remaining in the Pictish laws of succession. Indeed, to pass over communities in which something like promiscuity of Intercourse between the sexes is said to have prevailed—such as the Massagetas Agathyrsi, and the ancient Spartans—we find several among which polyandry, or a modified promiscuity, must have been the rude. Assuming that the legal obligation laid on younger brothers in their turn to marry the wires of their deceased elder brother, is a rc-lie of polyandry of the Thibetan ty, then we must hold that polyandrvprevailed at pe one time throughout India (Institutes of Menu, chap. iii. s. 173, and chap. ix. ss. 57. 58), among the ancient Hebrews (Dent. xxv. verses 5-11); in. Siam, Burinah, in Syria among the °stinks, the But (Bodo), the Kasia, and the Puharies of Gurhwal. Traces of it indeed remained in the time of Tacitus among the Germans (Tac., Germ., xx., Latham's edition, p. 67 et seq.). In short, polyandry may be regarded as one of the transitional forms in the advance from a state of promiscuity, on the assumption that pure promis cuity ever existed. Of the origin of this peculiar institution our space forbids us to write; We believe it to be connected with the want of balance between the numbers of the sexes, (line to the practice of female infanticide, which is its almost invariable :necompaniment. Tribes of warriors, wholly devoted to a military life, find women an incumbrance rather than a solace; and from this cause, and probably from the ditlicul ties of subsistence, formed the practice of killing their female childi en, sparing them only when they were the first-born. The disparity of the sexes would lead to polyandry, and once instituted, the custom would in many cases continue to exist after the habits and necessities which produced it disappeared. Iu•several places, as in Landak, where poly andry prevails, the sexes are now either equally balanced, or the female sex predomi nates. In these cases, polygynia and polyandry are commonly found existing side by side. The subject is one which demands, and as yet has not received full investigation.