has the right of succession to the widow and the property. And what has occurred in Ladak has certainly occurred elsewhere. As the sexes became more equally balanced, younger brothers would prefer taking wives to themselves to being the associated husbands of their eldest brother's wife. Polyandry would die out, but the law of succession to property, stable as all such laws are, would be perpetuated through custom, and, as in the days of polyandry the heir used to take the widow with the property, so would he continue to take the two together after polyandry had disappeared.
To enumerate all the peoples among whom it is the rule for the brother to succeed to a deceased elder brother's property and wives would occupy far too much space. The custom is almost universal among the lower races, and it will be sufficient to mention a few of the most striking examples. Among the Malays, a man is not obliged to marry the widow of a brother, but if he does so he becomes liable for all the obligations of the deceased.[1] Here we see that to marry the widow is the counterpart of the legal right of succession to the property. Among the Afghans it is incumbent on a man to marry his elder brother's widow, and the custom is so strongly insisted upon that any departure from it is counted a scandal and a blot upon the character of the parties concerned.[2] Among the Shushwap Indians (British Columbia), if a man dies childless, his brother must marry the widow. In Guzerat (India), the widow of an elder brother invariably devolves upon a younger, and the law is equally imperative with the Somalis (East Africa), the Damaras (South Africa), the people of the New Hebrides, and many others. In New Zealand, Samoa, Fiji, West Africa, Mongolia, and other localities it is usual for the brother to marry the brother's widow; but if she feels any repugnance she may, subject to certain penalties, return to her own family.
In course of time, through the custom of the widow and the property always passing to the next brother, as heir, it becomes the custom for the heir, even when not the brother of the deceased, to inherit the widow as well as the property; and what occurs in some of these cases shows clearly that the practice is derived from polyandry. For just as the brother "raises up seed" to a deceased brother, so in some cases does the heir, even when a son, "raise up seed" to the relative from whom he inherits. Thus the Makololb chief "Sekeletu, according to the system of the Bechuanas, became possessor of his father's wives, and adopted two of them; the children by these women are, however, in
- ↑ Crawford, Dictionary of the Indian Islands, article Marriage,
- ↑ Mission to Afghanistan, p. 27.
