CUAP. II.] 



CUSTOM OF POLYANDRY. 



4-29 



labour on tlie lands of their lords, and accompanying 

 them m theh^ distant journeys; durmg such intervals 

 of prolonged absence their own fields would have re- 

 mained uncidtivated and then- crops uncut, had they 

 not resorted to tlie expedient of identifying tlieir 

 representatives mth tlieir interests, by adopting their 

 brotliers and nearest relatives as the partners of their 

 wives and fortunes." In more recent times the custom 

 has been extenuated on tlie plea, that it prevents the 

 subdivision of estates, the children of these promiscuous 

 marriages being the recognised lieu's of all the husbands, 

 however numerous, of their mother. 



But the practice of polyandry is, I apprehend, mucli 

 more ancient than the system thus indicated. In 

 point of antiquity it can be sliown to have existed at a 

 period long antecedent to the conquest of Wijayo, or 

 the estabhshment of his feudal followers in Ceylon. It 

 appears to have been encouraged amongst almost every 

 race on the continent of India ; it receives a partial 

 sanction in the institutes of Menu ; and it is adverted 

 to without reproach in the epic of the Maha Barat \ the 

 heroine of which, Draupadi, was the wife of five Pandu 

 brothers. It has existed from time immemorial hi the 

 valley of Kashmir ^, in Thibet, and in the Sivalik inoiui- 

 tains : it is found in Sylhet and Kachar ^, anioug the 

 Coorgs of Mysore and the Todas on the Nilgherry hills ; 

 and to the present hour it serves to regulate the laws of 

 inheritance amongst the Nairs in the southern extremity 

 of the Dekkan.^ 



* The odious custom would appear 

 to have been comnion in Britain at 

 the period of CcBsar's invasion. 

 " The Britons," he Stays, " uxores 

 habeut deni duodeniquc inter se com- 

 munes, ct iiKi.riiiw frcifres ctiin fratri- 

 htis, et parentes cum liberis. Sed si 

 qui sunt ex his nati, eorum habentm* 

 liberi a quibus prinium A^irgines 

 qupeque ducta) sunt." — De Jicllo 

 Oallico, lib. v. cli. xiv. 



'^ Vigne's Kashmir, vol. i. p. ^7. 



' Journ. Asiat. Sue. Beny., vol. ix. 

 p. 834. 



* Adat. Re'<., vol. v. p. 13. Cas- 

 TANiiEDA, one of the Portuguese 

 historians of India, ascribes tlie pre- 

 valence of polyandry amongst the 

 Nairs to the design of the sove- 

 reigns, that being devoid of care and 

 love for their children, tlieir attention 

 might be the more exclusivelv given 



