Mating system in which the female partner may have multiple partners
This article is about polyandrous marriage practices. For polyandrous animal mating, see Polyandry in nature.
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Polyandry (/ˈpɒliˌændri,ˌpɒliˈæn-/; from Ancient Greek πολύ (polú) 'many', and ἀνήρ (anḗr) 'man') is a form of polygamy in which a woman takes two or more husbands at the same time. Polyandry is contrasted with polygyny, involving one male and two or more females. If a marriage involves a plural number of "husbands and wives" participants of each gender, then it can be called polygamy,[1] group or conjoint marriage.[2] In its broadest use, polyandry refers to sexual relations with multiple males within or without marriage.
Of the 1,231 societies listed in the 1980 Ethnographic Atlas, 186 were found to be monogamous, 453 had occasional polygyny, 588 had more frequent polygyny, and four had polyandry.[3] Polyandry is less rare than this figure suggests, as it considered only those examples found in the Himalayan mountain region (eight societies). More recent studies have found at least four other societies practicing polyandry.[4]
Fraternal polyandry is practiced among Tibetans in Nepal and parts of China, in which two or more brothers are married to the same wife, with the wife having equal "sexual access" to them.[5][6] It is associated with partible paternity, the cultural belief that a child can have more than one father.[4] Several ethnic groups practicing polyandry in India identify their customs with their descent from Draupadi, a central character of the Mahabharata who was married to five brothers, although local practices may not be fraternal themselves.
Polyandry is believed to be more likely in societies with scarce environmental resources. It is believed to limit human population growth and enhance child survival.[6][7] It is a rare form of marriage that exists not only among peasant families but also among elite families.[8] For example, polyandry in the Himalayan mountains is related to the scarcity of land. The marriage of all brothers in a family to the same wife allows family land to remain intact and undivided. If every brother married separately and had children, family land would be split into unsustainable small plots. In contrast, very poor persons not owning land were less likely to practice polyandry in Buddhist Ladakh and Zanskar.[6][verification needed]
In Europe, the splitting up of land was prevented through the social practice of impartible inheritance. With most siblings disinherited, many of them became celibate monks and priests.[9]
^McCullough, Derek; Hall, David S. (27 February 2003). "Polyamory – What it is and what it isn't". Electronic Journal of Human Sexuality. 6. Archived from the original on 10 December 2020. Retrieved 30 July 2015.
^Zeitzen, Miriam Koktvedgaard (2008). Polygamy: a cross-cultural analysis. Berg. p. 3. ISBN 978-1-84520-220-0. Archived from the original on 2020-08-01. Retrieved 2017-06-08.
^Ethnographic Atlas Codebook Archived 2012-11-18 at the Wayback Machine derived from George P. Murdock's Ethnographic Atlas recording the marital composition of 1,231 societies from 1960 to 1980.
^ abStarkweather, Katherine; Hames, Raymond (2012). "A survey of non-classical polyandry". Human Nature (Hawthorne, N.Y.). 23 (2): 149–150. doi:10.1007/s12110-012-9144-x. PMID 22688804. S2CID 2008559. Archived from the original on 2019-12-04. Retrieved 2020-11-19.
^Dreger, A. (2013). "When Taking Multiple Husbands Makes Sense". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on 31 July 2018. Retrieved 31 July 2018.
^ abcGielen, U. P. (1993). Gender Roles in traditional Tibetan cultures. In L. L. Adler (Ed.), International handbook on gender roles (pp. 413–437). Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
^(Linda Stone, Kinship and Gender, 2006, Westview, 3rd ed., ch. 6) The Center for Research on Tibet Archived 2018-01-21 at the Wayback Machine Papers on Tibetan Marriage and Polyandry (accessed October 1, 2006).
^Goldstein, "Pahari and Tibetan Polyandry Revisited" in Ethnology 17(3): 325–327 (1978) (The Center for Research on Tibet Archived 2018-01-21 at the Wayback Machine; accessed October 1, 2007).
^Levine, Nancy (1998). The Dynamics of polyandry: kinship, domesticity, and population on the Tibetan border. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Polyandry (/ˈpɒliˌændri, ˌpɒliˈæn-/; from Ancient Greek πολύ (polú) 'many', and ἀνήρ (anḗr) 'man') is a form of polygamy in which a woman takes two or...
Polyandry in India refers to the practice of polyandry, whereby a woman has two or more husbands at the same time, either historically on the Indian subcontinent...
behavioral ecology, polyandry is a class of mating system where one female mates with several males in a breeding season. Polyandry is often compared to...
Polyandry is a marital arrangement in which a woman has several husbands. In Tibet, those husbands are often brothers; "fraternal polyandry". Concern...
Polyandry in fishes is a mating system where females mate with multiple males within one mating season. This type of mating exists in a variety of animal...
woman is married to more than one husband at the same time, it is called polyandry. In sociobiology and zoology, researchers use polygamy in a broad sense...
(one man having more than one wife) and not polyandry (one woman having more than one husband), as polyandry is specifically outlawed by the Hebrew Bible's...
either formal or informal polyandry. The researchers found 53 communities studied between 1912 and 2010 that practiced polyandry (in which women have multiple...
men." Polyandry was not regarded without censure by the society spoken of in the epic. The Vedic texts have not discriminated between polyandry and polygamy...
for females. Polyandry decreases the SR gene frequency because the non-SR male sperm outcompete the SR male sperm. Therefore, polyandry results in a decreased...
insemination increases the frequency of polyandrous events and fertilizations. Polyandry has evolved to increase reproductive success. Male mating behavior is...
multiple spouses. Polygyny is a marriage between a man and multiple wives. Polyandry is a marriage between a woman and multiple husbands. A common expectation...
relationships are permitted, although divorce is a relatively simple process. Polyandry (a woman having multiple husbands) occurs very rarely in a few isolated...
which two males jointly defend a territory containing several females. Polyandry, though, is the most common mating system of dunnocks found in nature...
research has showed that some strains of C. chinensis exhibit polyandry. In the study, the polyandry strain is derived from the field, while the monandry strain...
Sororal polygyny, a marriage of two or more sisters and a man. Fraternal polyandry, a marriage of two or more brothers and one woman Genealogy of Jesus,...
types of polyandry exist: simultaneous polyandry and sequential polyandry. An even rarer subtype called cooperative simultaneous polyandry also exists...
every Hindu in India was theoretically allowed to have multiple wives. Polyandry refers to a marriage where a woman is married to more than one man during...
Tibetan polyandry accomplishes the same goal of the European stem family system, but in a very different way. Researchers have suggested that polyandry developed...
that there is no evidence of polyandry in that area at all. She argues that all European travelogues describing polyandry came from the region of Central...
Drosophila pseudoobscura, Drosophila melanogaster, and Drosophila neotestacea. Polyandry is a prominent mating system among Drosophila. Females mating with multiple...
beetles is a behavior common to both males and females of this species. Polyandry is thus polygamy in the female members of a population as discussed in...
perform polygyny. Polyandry is a form of marriage whereby a woman takes two or more husbands at the same time. Fraternal polyandry, where two or more...
Dowry system Family planning Joint family Infertility Nuclear family Polyandry Polygyny Children Abortion Child labour Child marriage Child prostitution...
Photinus pyralis, better known by the common name, the common eastern firefly, and colloquially called a "lightning bug", is a species of flying beetle...