1 64 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



appeared not one but two ! She who had objected to 

 be one of many wives had eloped with two young 

 men ; why should polygamy be the privilege of the 

 tyrant man ? l 



Something like that very question was argued by a 

 great lady in Tibet with an Indian traveller a few 

 years since. The Tibetan custom of fraternal poly- 

 andry is too well known to need description. The 

 tyranny of man can hardly be known among the happy 

 women of Tibet ; the boot is perhaps upon the other 

 leg. The traveller had cured the lady in question of a 

 nervous disorder. On one occasion, when he was 

 dining with her, she asked him many questions con- 

 cerning the marriage laws of India and Europe. 

 When he told her that in India a husband had several 

 wives and that among the Pkyling (foreigners) a man 

 had but one wife she stared at him with undisguised 

 astonishment. " One wife with one husband ! " she 

 exclaimed. " Don't you think we Tibetan women are 

 better off? The Indian wife has but a portion of her 

 husband's affections and property, but in Tibet the 

 housewife is the real lady of all the joint earnings and 

 inheritance of all the brothers sprung from the same 

 mother, who are all of the same flesh and blood. The 

 brothers are but one, though their souls are several. 

 In India a man marries, well ! several women who are 

 strangers to each other." "Am I to understand that 

 your ladyship would like to see several sisters marry 

 one husband ? " the traveller asked. " That is not the 

 point," she replied ; " what I contend is that Tibetan 

 women are happier than Indian women, for they enjoy the 

 privileges conceded in the latter country to the men." * 

 1 Dalton, 36. 2 Chandra Das, 161. 



