802 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



throughout the world the tendency is for women to be more nu- 

 merous than men, it follows that, wherever polyandry exists or 

 did exist, the balance between the sexes must have been artifi- 

 cially disturbed. Such a disturbance could only be effected by 

 female infanticide, as we have already stated in our former 

 paper. 



The rudest form of polyandry is that in which the associated 

 husbands are not necessarily blood-relations ; the less rude is that 

 in which they are brothers. The former is unquestionably the 

 more ancient form. 



The first is found among the Kasias (sub-Himalayan ranges), 

 the ISTairs (Malabar), and the Saporogian Cossacks. Apparently 

 it was this form that existed among the Guanas (South America), 

 for Ayasa says that among that people " careful stipulations were 

 made as to the duties and obligations the bride undertook with 

 reference to her husband ; how far she was bound to provide him 

 with food ; whether she was to procure the necessary fire-wood ; 

 whether she was to be the sole wife ; whether she was to be free to 

 marry another man also ; and in that case how much of her time 

 the first husband wished to engage/' It probably occurs at Ra- 

 saque (East Africa), for Speke mentions a case of two men having 

 married one woman ; * and it is found in the Marquesas Islands, 

 where " no man has more than one wife, and no wife of mature 

 years has less than two husbands sometimes she has three, but 

 such instances are not frequent." f In the Marquesas Islands 

 the males considerably outnumber the females. In the Sand- 

 wich Islands the female chiefs had a plurality of husbands. 

 Kaahumanu, one of the widows of Kamehameha, had two hus- 

 bands, viz., the ex-King of Tanai and his son. A female chief 

 named Kapiolani also had two husbands.! It appears that there 

 was no limit to the number, and that the arrangement by which 

 father and son were husbands of the same woman was not excep- 

 tional. Without insisting too much upon this instance, it seems 

 probable that the privilege thus retained by the female chiefs 

 was a survival from a more general polyandry ; the women high- 

 est in rank being naturally those who would be able to retain it 

 the longest. 



The form in which the associated husbands are brothers has 

 existed from time immemorial in the valley of Kashmir; in 

 Thibet ; among the Svalik Mountains ; among the Spiti ; in La- 

 dak ; in Kistewar and Sirmor. It is found in Gurghal, Sylhet, 

 and Kachar ; among the Coorgs of Mysore, the Todas of the Nil- 

 gherry Hills, and the Teers, Maleres, and Poleres of Malabar. It 



* Discovery of the Sources of the Nile, p. 239. 



| Melville's Marquesas Islands, p. 213. 



% Journal of a Residence in the Sandwich Islands, p. 219. 



