Polyandry in India

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Draupadi and her five husbands, the Pandavas. Top down, from left to right: the twins Nakula and Sahadeva stand either side of the throne on which Yudhishthira and Draupadi sit between Bhima and Arjuna.
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Polyandry in India refers to the practice of

Panchala, is married to five brothers.[1]

Polyandry was mainly prevalent in the

Pandavas were banished from their kingdom for thirteen years and they spent the last year hiding in this hilly terrain of Kinnaur. Some Kinaauris claim that this practice has been inherited from the Pandavas, who they identify as their ancestors [citation needed]. The Garhwali people
similarly identify their practice of polyandry with their descent from the Pandavas.

Polyandry is also seen in

Northern India
.

Recent years have seen the rise in

agrarian societies in Malwa region of Punjab to avoid division of farming land.[3]

Legal developments

Section 494 and 495 of the

Hindu Marriage Act was drafted, which prohibited marriage of a Hindu whose spouse was still living. Thus polygamy became illegal in India in 1956.[4]

Kinnaur

Polyandry is in practice in many villages of

Kinnaur district of Himachal Pradesh
. Fraternal polyandry (where husbands are related to each other) is mainly in practice in villages, where the societies are male dominated and which still follow ancient rituals and customs.

There are many forms of polyandry which can be found here. Most often, all the brothers are married to a woman and sometimes the marriage to brothers happens at a later date. The wife can only ascertain the blood-relationship of the children, though recently there have been a few instances of

paternity tests using DNA samples to resolve inheritance disputes. The rules for breaking the marriage are strict and a brother going against the marriage agreement can be treated as an outcast while losing his entire share in the property.[5]

Historically, fraternal polyandry has been practiced by wealthier families, associated with a higher caste, in Kinnaur as a way to keep wealth within one family. This allowed for land to be properly inherited and kept in one family. It was assurance that the land and wealth held by one family could not be partitioned. Those in lower castes also practiced fraternal polyandry if they had a larger amount of land.[6]

The territory of Kinnaur remained forbidden for many years as the land route was only established 30 years ago. The joint families are now fragmented into nuclear families. The level of economies and financial resources have transformed the life of the people of Kinnaur into city.[7][clarification needed]

Toda

Nilgiri Hills
, 1871.

Nilgiri hills (Tamil Nadu) in South India who for several centuries practiced polyandry.[8] They practiced a form of polyandrous relationship which is considered to be a classic example of polyandry. They practiced both fraternal and sequential polyandry
.

The males who shared one or two wives were not always full or half-brothers.[9] A Toda woman when married was automatically married to her husband's brothers.[10] When the wife became pregnant, one husband would ceremonially give a bow and arrow to the wife, and would be the father of that child. When the next child arrived, same husband who performed that ceremony continues to be called father even though child is not biologically related to him, unless another husband would perform the ceremony and become the father.[11][clarification needed]

Kerala

Polyandry and

mappilas[12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] Historians assert that there exists no authenticated case of polyandry among the Nairs. The evidence presented for such a custom during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries primarily stems from accounts provided by foreign travelers who were prohibited from approaching within sixty yards of a Nair's residence. Consequently, their testimonies offer an exceedingly unsatisfactory basis for definitive conclusions regarding Nair customs. Conversely, the extensive Malayalam literature on the subject provides a more nuanced and culturally informed perspective.[20]

In the case of castes, polyandry a man's property is inherited by his sister's children and not his own.

mukkuvas community associated with English and frrench, Dutch, Portuguese men as their concubines.[26]

Punjab and Haryana

In certain areas of Punjab, especially the Bathinda and Mansa districts of Malwa region, poor farmers follow the practice of polyandry under economic compulsion to avoid further fragmentation of their already small landholdings. A study conducted in 2019 by Panjab University found evidence of polyandry in Haryana and Punjab. The study culminated in the book Gender Culture and Honour and found cases of wife sharing in the districts of Yamunanagar in Haryana and Mansa and Fatehgarh Sahib of Punjab.[27]

Jaunsar-Bawar

Polyandry was practised in

Northern India from southeastern Kashmir all the way through Nepal. Polyandry has been reported among these people in many districts but studied in great detail in Jaunsar-Bawar. It is a region in Dehradun district in Uttarakhand. The practice is believed to have descended from their ancestors who had earlier settled down in the plains from Himalayas.[29]

Polyandrous union occurs in this region when a woman marries the eldest son in a family. The woman automatically becomes the wife of all his brothers upon her marriage. The brothers can be married to more than one woman if the first woman was sterile or if the age difference of the brothers were large. The wife is shared equally by all brothers and no one in the group has exclusive privilege to the wife. The woman considers all the men in the group her husband and the children recognise them all as their father.[30][31]

Tibetans in India

By 1976, 83.3% of Tibetans who were exiled from China had taken refuge in India.[32] In Tibet, monogamy, polygamy, and polyandry have traditionally been practiced. Some Tibetan refugees now settled in India practice polyandry as a result of their material conditions.[33] Fraternal polyandry is a way for Tibetans to avoid having to build multiple houses every time a male in the family marries. One wife married to many brothers allows for less resources to be used on one brother and his one wife. Polyandry is also a way for Tibetans to not have to marry non-Tibetans whilst they are settled in India.[34]

Other tribal peoples

Polyandry

Fraternal polyandry exists among the Khasa of Dehradun; the

Mannan
in Kerala.

In the

Cochin, Muduvas of Travancore and of Nairs.[35][36]

See also

References

  1. ^ Samuelson, James (1890). India, Past and Present, Historical, Social, and Political. London: Trübner & Co. pp. 18, 20, 46, 47. Retrieved 6 September 2018 – via Internet Archive.
  2. ^ Lakshmi Raghunandan. At the Turn of the Tide: The Life and Times of Maharani Setu Lakshmi Bayi, the Last Queen of Travancore, 1995. p. 185.
  3. ^ "Draupadis bloom in rural Punjab" The Times of India. 16 July 2005.
  4. ^ Modern Indian Family Law, Werner Menski, Routledge, 2013 p.194
  5. ^ Negi, Sunder Kala; Singh, Hoshiar (2014). "Marital Satisfaction and Well Being among Fraternal Polyandrous and Monogamous Tribal People of Kinnaur". Irc's International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research in Social & Management Sciences. 2 (4): 47–57.
  6. ^
    ProQuest 2473341683
    – via Proquest.
  7. ^ Gautam, Rajesh K; Kshatriya, Gautam K (2011). "Polyandry: A Case Study of Kinnauras". Indian Journal of Physical Anthropology. 30 (1–2): 146–161.
  8. ^ Anthony R Walker (28 February – 12 March 2004). "The truth about the Todas". Frontline. Vol. 21, no. 5. Archived from the original on 13 October 2007.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  9. ISBN 978-0-19-505234-3
    .
  10. ISBN 978-0-7619-2819-5
    .
  11. ^ The Todas by William Halse Rivers Rivers.
  12. ISBN 978-0-520-02529-5
    .
  13. ^ Hardgrave, Robert L. The Nadars of Tamilnad. University of California Press.
  14. ^ A Study of Polyandry – Prince Peter of Greece and Denmark (1963) The Hague: Moulton. Open Library ID OL15135517M. p. 159.
  15. ISBN 81-212-0105-5
    . p. 432.
  16. ISBN 9788120804876
    .
  17. ^ 074531693
  18. ISBN 9004045104
    .
  19. ISBN 978-81-7022-586-7
    .
  20. JSTOR 2843423
    .
  21. ^ The imperial gazetteer of India by William Wilson Hunter.
  22. PMID 17759687
    .
  23. JSTOR 2790087
    .
  24. JSTOR 2790609
    .
  25. S2CID 143509766
    .
  26. ISBN 978-90-04-04510-1
    .
  27. ^ "Modern Draupadis exist in Mansa villages". The Times of India.
  28. ^ "The mystique of the mountains". Frontline. November–December 2003. Archived from the original on 11 November 2006.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  29. ISBN 978-1-84520-221-7
    .
  30. doi:10.1525/aa.1962.64.1.02a00070
    .
  31. JSTOR 643539
    .
  32. ISBN 9781622739127
    .
  33. ISBN 9789004489455
    .
  34. JSTOR 43301058
    – via JSTOR.
  35. ^ Polyandry in Ancient India by Sarva Daman Singh
  36. ISBN 9788120607064
    .

Further reading

  • Manis Kumar Raha & Palash Chandra Coomar : Polyandry in India. Gian Publishing House, Delhi, 1987.
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