Polyandry

POLYANDRY. - From the Greek πολύς = much and ἀνήρ = man, it is the simultaneous marital cohabitation of one woman with several men.

I. MORAL THEOLOGY AND CANON LAW

Polyandry is directly opposed: 1) to the divine-positive precept, promulgated at the very beginning of humanity (Gen. 2:23) and solemnly confirmed by Jesus Christ (Mt. 19:4-6). Whence it is deduced that, if it is true that the human will conditions the establishment of a new family, it cannot at all condition its intimate structure and its purposes, which have a divine origin; 2) to primary natural law, inasmuch as it is opposed to the primary end of marriage, which is procreation (in this condition the woman generally becomes unfruitful) and consequently to the education of the children (of those who might be born, paternity would remain uncertain and therefore it would be more difficult to provide for their formation). Moreover, if polyandry were legitimate, one would easily end up no longer recognizing offspring as the primary end of marriage and no longer considering the institution of marriage as at the service of life, but only at the service of experiences without personal burdens or social responsibilities; 3) polyandry is also opposed to natural law inasmuch as it harms the secondary ends of marriage, which are the mutual help and perfection of the spouses, the calming of concupiscence, and the peace and harmony of the family. It is not natural for the father to be ignorant of his own child and the child of his own father; nor, because of jealousy and passion rooted in human nature, can it be supposed possible to prevent the germination of the seeds of discord and disorder, which can even lead to crime. Therefore the Church has always affirmed unity as one of the essential properties of the conjugal bond and has condemned polygamy under every form of polyandry and polygyny (cf. CIC, can. 1013 § 2, with the sources cited there) and has imposed on bigamists, who, despite the persistence of the conjugal bond already contracted, attempt a new marriage even if only civil, the penalty of infamy, which in certain cases can rise to excommunication and personal interdict (can. 2356).

Vincenzo Fagiolo

II. ETHNOLOGY

Polyandry was considered by evolutionist ethnologists, such as Mc Lennan, to be one of the studies of the evolution of human marriage and the family; others, such as Corso, regarded it as a derivation of collective or group marriage. To understand polyandry in its true meaning and to give a correct explanation of it, it is necessary to examine its forms and its diffusion throughout the world.

1. Forms of polyandry

A distinction must be made between sporadic polyandry and that which is systematic, having become as it were the common form of marriage of a people, a regular institution. Systematic polyandry is twofold: matriarchal and patriarchal. Matriarchal polyandry appears in Tibet as follows: two or more young men, after paying a determined sum of money, become husbands of the same woman and live in her house. The children belong to the wife. When, however, one of the husbands wishes to have the common woman for himself alone, then the children are divided among all the husbands. These, leaving the common wife and departing from the house, receive that sum of money which they paid upon entering the wife's house. The woman's situation is not rosy, because the husbands, as Bonvalot observed, who noted this form of polyandry during his exploration journey in Tibet together with the prince of Orléans, make her work beyond all measure and extract from her the greatest possible profit.

Patriarchal polyandry is fraternal polyandry, in which it is the eldest brother who marries the single woman for himself and for his brothers. Indeed, in the marriage ceremony, for example, among the Tibetans, it is the eldest brother who performs all the nuptial ceremonies. The marriage is provisional and does not become stable until after the first child has been born. In fact, after the nuptial festivities, and at most after about twenty days, the bride returns to her home and visits the husband only for a few days during certain festivals of the year. Once her pregnancy is subsequently established, there is a feast again, the bride coming to reside permanently in the house of the husbands and bringing her dowry. The legal spouse, as Father Desideri notes, a Jesuit missionary who was in Lhasa from 1712 to 1727, is held to be the eldest brother, but the bride is recognized, and herself considers herself, as the legitimate spouse of all the brothers of the spouse. The sons and daughters are called sons and daughters of the spouse and nephews and nieces of his co-husband brothers, although some of them, as the same missionary observed, are certainly not the sons and daughters of the same man. There exists the right of primogeniture and exogamy for all generations of consanguineous kin.

Among the Toda (who today are in a great crisis of natality, according to information from the Spanish Jesuit missionary Father H. Heras, who has visited them) this characteristic custom prevails: they recognize as legal father, in every social or legal matter, only the one who has handed over a bow and an arrow to the woman during the seventh month of her pregnancy. If the co-husbands are brothers, this ceremony is performed by the eldest, although the other brothers too are regarded as fathers. If the co-husbands are not brothers, but more remote relatives, then the one who has handed over the bow and arrow is regarded as father not only of one child, but also of all the other children of the same woman, until another co-husband performs the same ceremony. This holds even when the one who performed the ceremony has already been dead for a long time, provided that no one else after him has performed it with the same woman. In feudal times of ancient China the Emperor observed a similar rite, after the spring sacrifice to Cao Mei, who is the protectress of marriages and births, with every woman of his harem who was pregnant.

2. Diffusion of polyandry

The Tibeto-Burman tribes of the Buthia in Nepal follow polyandry. It is practiced in Kashmir, in forward India (the Toda of the Nilgiri Mountains, the Kurumba, the Munduvar, the Naiar, especially among the Dravida, but also among the Munda), in southern Arabia (the Mot'a marriage) and among certain Hamitic tribes, the Bahima or Bancayole of Uganda. It also exists in the Chinese province of Fukien, in two districts. It existed among the Jephthalmi (also called Hoa and White Hunni) formerly regarded as Turks, now as Mongols and natives of Mongolia who, after the invasion of Persia, had their principal centers at Bamiyan and Badabishan; among the Tocari, an Indo-European people of central Asia, and in Zabulistan; it was supposed among the Casaki to the north-west of the region of the Ili and among the Bolor to the west of Yarcand. Sporadically it has been noted in Shensi (China), among the Indians of America (Orinoco), in the arctic regions (Aleuts) and among certain peoples of Oceania (New Zealanders).

3. Explanation of polyandry

Polyandry, given its restricted diffusion, cannot be considered as an evolutionary stage through which all the peoples of the world have passed, as the evolutionists held. Even Frazer, at a later time, had to recognize that polyandry is rare and exceptional, adducing also a biological reason for it, namely that polyandry could exist in a permanent state only in the case that there existed a numerical preponderance of men over women, which instead does not occur in any people of the world.

How has polyandry been explained? According to Eberhard, polyandry is originally connected with matriarchy. This is true. But polyandry did not arise from matriarchy in itself, as Father Schmidt rightly observed, but rather from the crossing of markedly matriarchal peoples with strictly patriarchal peoples having the right of primogeniture. Indeed, this is how it happened in southern India, for example, among the Naiar, who then adopted polyandry. These were matriarchal when they were subjugated by the Nambutiri Brahmins, who had emigrated from northern India and who were patriarchal with the right of primogeniture. The Nambutiri first adopted successive polyandry, then simultaneous and fraternal polyandry, and finally free or non-fraternal polyandry. Among them, since it was desired to keep the family patrimony undivided, only the eldest brother married one or more Brahmin women, with whom fraternal polyandry was impossible and in fact was also severely prohibited. The younger brothers, remaining in the house of the eldest brother, did with the Naiar women what they could not do with the women of their own people, that is, they imposed upon them that they give themselves to them, thus concluding with them free unions, which could be dissolved at any moment. The woman then gave herself to another man, and there was first a successive polyandry and then a simultaneous one. From this one passed to free polyandry, when subsequently each younger brother of the Nambutiri took in succession various Naiar women, who thus had relations with brothers of several families, whereby there was non-fraternal or free polyandry. This was then also adopted by the Naiar. The polyandry of Tibet, the classic country of polyandry, has been explained by authors (P. Desideri, P. Della Penna, Williams, Grenard) with very different reasons: because of the poverty of the soil or because of the insufficient number of women relative to men in the proportion of seven women to eight men; or because of the right of primogeniture, because of the unity of the genealogical line which does not admit the collateral line, and because of the undivided family patrimony. All these reasons are insufficient to explain Tibetan polyandry, without admitting, as for India, the crossing of a patriarchal culture with a matriarchal one, of which residues still exist today in Tibet, although the process may have been different. The same ethnological explanation may hold for polyandry among the other peoples, while particular ones are required for sporadic polyandry.

From what has been said it is clear that polyandry is a relatively recent phenomenon, since the cultures from which it derives are ethnologically not archaic but primary cultures; therefore there is another reason for saying that polyandry cannot be considered as a general stage or the basis of the evolution of human marriage.

Luigi Vannicelli