The Growth of the Marriage Relation. 79 



ence is probably everywhere an important motive for the 

 practise of polygyny, partly through the large family 

 which may result, and partly owing to the formation of 

 family alliances by the chiefs, which have a real value in 

 the absence of a central governing authority, for giving a 

 greater coherence to society. 



Referring now to the polyandrous phase of the marriage 

 relation (a), in which a group of kinsmen are married to a 

 single female, we find it usually associated with conditions 

 similar to those where a group of kinswomen are married 

 to one man. There are two essential diiferences, however, 

 which are dependent on each other. Instead of the men 

 remaining after marriage among their wife's relations, the 

 woman leaves her home to live with her husbands, at their 

 own home. This is due to the fact that the wife is pur- 

 chased, and consequently, in this phase of polyandry, the 

 children belong to their fathers' family group, instead of to 

 that of their mother as in the related polygynous marriage. 

 The Tibetans, who belong to the same stock as the Mon- 

 gols, are the most pronounced polyandrists of the present 

 day, although there are indications that the practice was at 

 one time widely spread throughout the Asiatic continent. 

 It is stated by Mr. Andrew Wilson that, among the Tibetan- 

 speaking people, the choice of a wife is the right of the 

 eldest brother, but "the contract he makes is understood 

 to involve a marital contract with all the other brothers, if 

 they choose to avail themselves of it." It might be thought 

 this curious custom must be accompanied by a scarcity of 

 women, but, as a fact, there is in Tibet a large surplus of 

 women who are maintained in the Lama nunneries. The 

 real explanation of its polyandry may be inferred from the 

 effect which this practice has in "checking the increase of 

 population in regions from which emigration is difficult, 

 and where it is also difficult to increase the means of sub- 

 sistence." Poverty appears to have been the ultimate 

 cause of polyandry wherever this system has prevailed, 

 although sometimes it is accompanied by a scarcity of 

 females, diie to infanticide, or to the excessive price set on 

 them, limiting the accessible su})ply. The existence of 

 polyandry among a people possessing much property is due 

 to long continued habit, which originated at a time when 

 they lived under much less favorable conditions. 



In Ceylon, where polyandry is the most common form 



