It's called polyandry.
One woman, several
Husbands.
It's an unusual arrangement.
Today, polyandry only persists in
isolated villages in the Himalayas.
When it was time for Sunita Kumari to
wed, her family, like many in India, made
arrangements.
But they involved more than
a dowry and celebration.
Sunita has not
one husband, not two husbands, but three,
all brothers.
What must their life be like?
Westerners might find the practice
Shocking, but for this community it works
fine.
One reason: sheer practicality.
In the
Himalayas, arable land is scarce.
Farms
are tiny.
If each generation divided
each family's holdings, everyone would
starve.
Polyandry preserves the farm and
the family's future.
Unlike most men in
India, husbands here handle domestic
duties.
They're willing to help with the
cooking and childcare.
In fraternal
polyandry, a family picks a wife for its
oldest son.
The marriage can also include
his younger brothers.
They don't have to
join in, but most do.
No one takes a
decision regarding one's own marriage.
Everyone at home sits down together and
then it is decided with the consent of
everyone.
Polyandry also functions as a
form of birth control.
No matter how many
husbands she has, a wife can get pregnant
only so often.
If each man were to wed
separately, the population here would
explode.
But what about sex,
the forbidden core of a polyandry taboo?
In truth, it's a matter of scheduling and
on the wife's part, forbearance.
Tolerance is
very important.
The wife has to
understand everything.
The older brother’s nature.
The
younger brother’s nature.
What about jealousy, that bane of
even the most mundane marriage?
If the wife
is smart, she will take turns each night
and sleep with all the brothers.
It's not like the older brother wants her the
whole time.
Until recently, no one here much cared
what the outside world thought.
Isolation had
preserved a way of life that had
withered everywhere else.
But a road now
links the region to distant cities.
And
on roofs once decorated only with prayer
flags,
satellite dishes sprout.
This village has
entered the modern world whose images of
romance stand in sharp contrast to
polyandry.
But polyandry here faces a
bigger threat: education.
As more people
are becoming more educated we are also
practicing family planning.
If a father
has only one son there will be no
question about the land, therefore, common
marriages will come to an end.
In two,
perhaps three generations, polyandry may
vanish here.
But for now, those who
practice it find comfort in the familiar.
I, myself, feel that common marriage is very good.
I feel
like everyone should live like our
family.
Even if we do not have anything
to eat or drink, we sit happily, we live
peacefully.
English (auto-generated)