2i6 A NATURALIST IN WESTERN CHINA 



youth. Polyandry and polygamy meet, and temporary 

 marriages, for one month to three years, are the rule. The 

 highest official and the meanest soldier take advantage of the 

 system. With the former it is temporary monogamy or polyg- 

 amy, but with the latter, owing to pecuniary limitations, one 

 woman often becomes, pro tempore, the wife of a small com- 

 munity of soldiers. These wives or their children, for obvious 

 reasons, are seldom, if ever, brought out from Thibet ; the 

 former make new alliances and the children are claimed by the 

 Lamas. 



" The question of Thibetan morality is a very complex 

 one, and it is almost impossible to disentangle the cause 

 from the effect. True polyandry is owing, indirectly, to a 

 low moral perception ; but it might be correct to blame 

 it, in a measure, for the more degenerate quasi-polyandry. 

 Whatever we may think of the former, from the standpoint 

 of absolute morality, it is relatively a moral system and solves 

 many problems. To change it without changing the conditions 

 would be tantamount to driving the brave nomad women 

 into the towns to become the temporary wives of Chinese 

 rabble, priestly roues, and peripatetic Thibetans. Perhaps my 

 hinting that polyandry as a system is in many ways well suited 

 to the plateaux will evoke much unfavourable comment, but 

 there are good men, Roman Catholic and Protestant, priest and 

 layman, who have noticed the same difficulty. 



" The effect of the system on the women is another ques- 

 tion about which we cannot afford to be dogmatic. When 

 young the Thibetan women are often very pretty, but they 

 age quickly and become as weirdly ugly as the mediaeval 

 witches. To say that polyandry is alone responsible for this 

 change would be sentiment unsupported by facts ; but un- 

 doubtedly this system, combined with hard work, loathsome 

 uncleanliness, and often grotesque head-dress tends to give a 

 great many women an inhumanly vile expression. 



" The families on the plateaux are very small and many 

 women are barren. This is a blessing in disguise, owing to 

 the impossibility of the nomad country supporting more than a 

 very limited population, and the small amount of arable land 

 capable of relieving the congested centres. Polyandry is both 



