husband of the first few days.[1] The number of her husbands varied from four to twelve.[2] Each one of them was at first presented to her either by her mother or by her maternal uncle, an important personage in the family. Each co-partner was in his turn husband in reality during a very short time, varying from one day to ten, and he was free, on his side, to participate in divers polyandric conjugal societies. We are assured that in these curious ménages all the associated husbands lived in very good understanding with each other.[3]
Generally the Naïr husbands were neither brothers nor relatives, for these polyandrous people seemed to have ideas about incest analogous to our own. But the unions outside the caste were the only ones reputed culpable; they constituted a sort of social adultery. The conjugal prerogatives of the husbands were not unaccompanied by certain duties. They had to maintain the common wife, and they agreed together to share the expense. One took on himself to furnish the clothes, another to give the rice.[4] On these conditions each one could in his turn enjoy the common property, and, in order not to be troubled in the use of his rights, it sufficed the husband on duty to hang on the door of the house and on the wife's door his shield and his sword or knife.
The Brahmins were obliged to tolerate these polyandric marriages, so contrary, however, to their laws; they finished by even deriving a profit from them. In the Brahmanic families in contact with the Naïrs the eldest son alone married, so as not to scatter the patrimony; the others entered the matrimonial combinations of the Naïrs, and thus their children did not inherit.[5]
On their side, the Naïrs were naturally only acquainted with matriarchal heredity. No Naïr, says Buchanan, knows his father, and every man has for heirs the children of his sister. He loves them as if they were his own, and unless he is reputed a monster, he must show much more grief at
