l8o MAN: PAST AND PRESENT. [CHAP. 



together in a horrible mess, which is greedily devoured when the 

 taste is' acquired. On the other hand alcoholic drinks are little 

 consumed, the national beverage being coarse Chinese tea im- 

 ported in the form of bricks and prepared with tsampa (barley- 

 meal) and butter, and thus becoming a food as well as a drink. 

 The lamas have a monopoly of this tea-trade, which could not 

 stand the competition of the Indian growers ; hence arises the 

 chief objection to removing the barriers of seclusion. 



Tibet is one of the few regions where polyandrous customs, 

 intimately associated with the matriarchal state, 

 Polyandry. still persist almost in their pristine vigour. The 

 husbands are usually but not necessarily all brothers, 

 and the bride is always obtained by purchase. Unless otherwise 

 arranged, the oldest husband is the putative paterfamilias^ all the 

 others being considered as " uncles." An inevitable result of the 

 institution is to give woman a dominant position in society; hence 

 the "queens" of certain tribes, referred to with so much astonish- 

 ment by the early Chinese chroniclers. Survivals of this " petticoat 

 government " have been noticed by travellers amongst the Lolos, 

 Mossos, and other indigenous communities about the Indo- 

 Chinese frontiers. But it does not follow that polyandry and 

 a matriarchal state always and necessarily preceded polygamy 

 and a patriarchal state. On the contrary, it would appear that 

 polyandry never could have been universal, being the outcome of 

 special conditions arising in particular regions, where the struggle 

 for existence is severe, and the necessity of imposing limits to 

 the increase of population more urgent than elsewhere 1 . Hence 

 to me it seems as great a mistake to assume a matriarchate as it 

 is to assume promiscuity as the universal antecedent of all later 

 family relations. In Tibet itself polygamy exists side by side with 

 polyandry amongst the wealthy classes, while monogamy is the 

 rule amongst the poor pastoral nomads of the northern steppe. 



1 " Whatever may have been the origin of polyandry, there can be no doubt 

 that poverty, a desire to keep down population, and to keep property undivided 

 in families, supply sufficient reason to justify its continuance. The same motives 

 explain its existence among the lower castes of Malabar, among the Jat (Sikhs) 

 of the Panjab, among the Todas, and probably in most other countries in which 

 this custom prevails " (Rockhill, p. 726). 



