r6 2 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



she is privileged to cohabit with the other brothers. 

 In some cases a girl will have brothers ranging in age 

 from twenty-five to five whom she has to regard as 

 her husbands, so that by the time the youngest 

 brother reaches puberty she may be over thirty and 

 the young man has to perform the duties of a husband 

 with a wife who is twice his age. Polyandry is said to 

 be most prevalent among the blacksmiths, who lead 

 the most precarious existence and have to observe the 

 strictest economy." 1 



Fraternal polyandry it has been argued is due to 

 economic causes, such as poverty, and the desire to 

 keep the family property together. That economic 

 causes have often had an important influence cannot be 

 denied. But to attribute any species of polyandry to 

 these causes alone is to venture upon a very hazardous 

 theory in the face of the evidence from all parts of the 

 world of indifference to what the civilised peoples of 

 Europe generally regard as womanly virtue. It is not 

 of course asserted that this indifference is universal ; 

 but the present arid preceding chapters show that even 

 where the chastity of a married woman is insisted on 

 chastity is often interpreted in such a way that 

 sexual union with certain persons from time to time 

 appointed or permitted by the husband or by custom 

 is not deemed a breach of morals, but on the* contrary 

 is a positive duty. Polyandry is the more or less 

 permanent union of a woman with several men who 

 are jointly regarded as her husbands. So far from its 

 being a hardship submitted to unwillingly and from 

 the pressure of poverty, in some cases at all events it 

 is a subject of boasting. Thus the Kanisans, or 



1 Thurston, 114; Ind, Census^ 1901, xx. 167; Id. xxvi. 275. 



