Polygamy is widespread across the Earth in many cultures. Much less common is polyandry - when one woman has several husbands at once. If polygamy (polygyny) is found in most traditional cultures (much more often than only monogamous marriages), then polyandry (polyandry) is less than a hundred. True, historical evidence shows that in ancient times, polyandry was much more widespread across the planet than a hundred years ago.
What kind of polyandry is there?
Pure polyandry - the marriage of one woman to several husbands at once - is rare. Much more often, such a marriage is furnished with various additional conditions, and in addition, it exists mixed with other forms of marriage.
The most common fraternal polyandry is when two or more brothers have one wife. In these cases, as a rule, the older brother marries himself and his younger brothers. It is the elder brother (respectively, the elder husband) who is the head of the family and has the freedom of marriage choice. He also establishes the sequence of marriage relations between his brothers and their common wife. With this form of marriage, the freedom of a woman is only apparent. In fact, this is a very regulated form of marriage, and it is based on the leadership of the eldest man in the family. Such polyandry is still common among many peoples of Nepal, among part of the population of Bhutan, among the Dardas - the fair-haired and light-eyed people living in the Himalayas (there is a legend that they are the descendants of the warriors of Alexander the Great), among some Tibetans, among some small peoples of South India,among many Indian tribes of South America, etc.
In Tibet and the Himalayas, polyandry often coexists with polygamy. An older brother, married to himself and all his brothers, can take both a second and a third wife. Moreover, they will only be his wives, but not the wives of his brothers. His other wives, in turn, may be married to other men who are not the husbands of his first wife. Such a marriage is called polygynandry and differs from a group marriage, in which the marriage relationship within a group of men and women is fairly free.
A variation of polyandry is multiple paternity. It is found among some peoples of Melanesia. It is interesting that for them the main role in determining kinship is played not by biological fatherhood, but by participation in the upbringing of children. Their account of kinship goes exclusively through the mother (matrilineal), but the brothers of a woman who live with her in the same house are considered the fathers of her children in the tribe, and husbands who do not live in the same house with their wife are not recognized as such.
There is also biandria, when one woman has two husbands, not necessarily related to each other. In the New Hebrides (Oceania), biandria was until recently mandatory for widowers and widows. Associative polyandry - when a marriage is first contracted as a pair, but then the wife can take more husbands for herself.
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Why did it happen?
Ethnographers see the main reason for the emergence of polyandry in economics: polyandry made it possible to avoid the fragmentation of land ownership between brothers-heirs (in medieval Europe, the principle of primacy played such a role). This reason "works" for Tibet and the Himalayas with their poor soil or for India with its overpopulation. But it does not explain the rooting of polyandry among many peoples of Oceania, and especially among the Indians of the Amazon, who lived mainly by hunting and gathering. In some cases, polyandry may have been caused by a shortage of women due to the selective killing of newborn girls. Probably, the reasons for the emergence of the custom of polyandry were varied in different societies of the Earth, and no one universal does not exist.
Diversity among historical peoples
We find the first historical mention of polyandry in the law of the king of the Sumerian city of Lagash Uruinimgina (XXIV century BC), who prohibited this custom on pain of death by stoning a woman with many men (nothing is said about execution for men). From this we can conclude that polyandry was more common among the Sumerians in earlier periods of history. Polyandry was considered legal in Media - a region of ancient Persia, as well as among the Hephthalites ("White Huns"), who formed a state in Central Asia in the 4th-6th centuries. There are indications of the existence of polyandry among the Arabs in the pre-Islamic era. In ancient India, polyandry was common and did not surprise anyone, as follows from the epic Mahabharata.
In the "General History" of the ancient Greek writer Polybius (II century BC) there are indications that polyandry was once widespread in Sparta. There are references to the rebellion of ancient Roman women who demanded to legitimize biandria. There is evidence (epitaphs on the graves) of happy civil biandric marriages in the same ancient Rome, when a husband and lover lived for many years with one woman in love and harmony and raised children together.
Polyandry was widespread among many aboriginal peoples of North America (Shoshone, Navajs, Apaches, etc.) before the white colonization of their territories.
The current state of polyandry
The spread of Christianity, with its prohibition on any intimate relationship other than monogamous heterosexual marriage, outside the Old World in the New Age led to the extinction of the custom of polyandry in many cultures. The change in the form of management was also important, in which many economic factors that had previously supported this practice disappeared.
Nevertheless, polyandry is still practiced among a number of peoples of the Indian subcontinent. In Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, polyandric marriage is officially legal. In a number of other countries, polyandry exists de facto, under the guise of official monogamy. It still, apparently, prevails among many non-contact peoples (that is, voluntarily avoiding communication with the outside world), such as a number of tribes of the Indians of the Amazon.
In some countries, polyandry is not explicitly prohibited by law, and this is contributing to the resurgence of this practice. Thus, in 2013, the Kenyan authorities registered a biandric marriage for the first time. At one time, polyandry was practiced among the Maasai - one of the largest peoples of this country and neighboring Tanzania.