population, where conquerors badly off for wives came to settle, that polyandry has become general and enduring. It is surely only an exceptional form of marriage, and we can enumerate the countries where it has been or is still in use.
II. Ethnography of Polyandry.
Cæsar speaks thus of the polyandry of the ancient Britons:—"By tens and twelves the husbands have their wives in common, especially brothers with brothers, and parents with children."[1]
I have previously quoted Strabo on the polyandry of the primitive Arabs, which was also fraternal.
In the sixteenth century the Guanches of two of the Canary Isles, Lancerote and Tortaventura, were still polyandrous, but amongst them the husbands did not number more than three.[2]
Polyandry also existed in New Zealand and in the Marquesas, but restricted to certain women only.[3]
In America, amongst the Avaroes and the Maypures, according to Humboldt, brothers had often only one wife.
But the great polyandric centres exist or have existed in Asia, in India, Ceylon, and Thibet. Various aboriginal tribes of India, nearly always much addicted to female infanticide, have practised polyandry. The Miris and Dophlas of Bengal are still polyandrous.[4] Among the Todas of Nilgherry polyandry was fraternal. When a man married a girl, she became on that account the wife of all his brothers, and inversely these became the husbands of all the sisters of the wife. The first child born of these marriages was attributed to the eldest brother, the second to the next brother, and so forth.[5]
But polyandry has not flourished only among the primitive races of India. The Hindoo populations had also adopted it, and traces of it are found in their sacred
