Polyandry. Maybe 7-8 years ago, at a different site, I was posting to a member who was really strongly opposed to polyandry (the forum topic). He argued from the position that he couldn't imagine how any people could prosper under such a marriage system. Though against polygamy--he was a staunch supporter of monogamy--he told me in a post that he believed that a society *had a better chance* of holding together under polygamy than under anybody's polyandrous system.
He explained how polyandry would crumble pretty quickly just under the stress of *jealous husbands* alone, and he went on about the *alpha male nature*, each man wanting to be *the head* of HIS household, all the way to how there really wasn't a single sister 'out there, in the wild' who could put together a polyandrous household and somehow, 'keep a self-respecting brother' happy and satisfied to be *one of three or four more husbands*, and ALL of them supposedly living under the same roof? For years and years, too? No way.
He mentioned the problem of 'what to do/how to handle' the wife having any children and then the family needing to figure out the matter of paternity--especially if a child came out favoring the mama and not any of the possible dads, (and also, especially if a child came out looking *dead to rights* like one of the husbands), keeping peace in the household given the confusion that more than one husband would naturally cause (alpha power playing), behind money earning capacities, sex drive differences, *being affectionate with the wife* in front of the other husbands, to education level differences, and well, the brother-poster argued his position pretty thoroughly. From all kinds of angles (male POV), the other men-posters were deeply into agreement with this brother.
I admit that though I had never had any prior interest in the subject of polyandry, when I thought about it, I realized that I could at least *imagine* a scenario when polyandry 'could' be structured so that, instead of there being any personality clashes that threatened the polyandrous *grouping*, a scenario could be
imagined whereby the issue of *gender competition* could be eliminated or possibly 'vastly reduced' while HONORING *and RELYING on* all of the in-born gender strengths that WOMEN and MEN possesses.
I remember posting to you, Perfection, something about my belief that WOMEN essentially *make the BEST planners* and that essentially, MEN *make the BEST builders*.
My statement should be overstood from an *organic, even IDEAL gender standpoint*. I should further qualify my statement, though: When the focus of the WOMEN and the MEN is
*the continuance of LIFE, then the planning from WOMEN + the *implementation* of the planning by MEN creates the 'best conditions' from which BOTH GENDERS makes the best, combined attempt to *assure* the survival of the group--from one generation to the next. The reason I think this way has alot to do with what I wound up posting in that long ago forum about the *potential benefits* of basing a culture's marriage practices upon *polyandry*. I imagined the whole speculation about such a system's advantages while holding to the hypothesis: WOMEN and the planning. MEN and the implementing/building required to bring the plans to fruition.
I'll try to reconstruct my example that I posted in that other site, but first, here's the online OED definitions (with etymologies) for the words, POLYANDRY and POLYGAMY:
POLYANDRY
Etymology: < Hellenistic Greek πολύανδρος having many husbands (see polyandria n., and compare ancient Greek πολυανδρία populousness) + -y suffix3. In sense 2 after polyandrous adj. etc. Compare French polyandrie(1765 in sense 1; see also polyandria n.), Italian poliandria (a1769 in sense 1). Compare also later polygyny n.
a. A form of polygamy in which one woman has two or more husbands or male sexual partners at the same time. Cf. polygyny n.
1680 W. Lawrence Marriage by Morall Law of God i. vi. 105 Compulsion to publick Marriage or Wooing..causeth Polyandry when one Woman is Courted by two, or many Rivals, she lies under the Temptation of tasting them all, and not till necessitated, to fix on one.
1780 M. Madan Thelyphthora I. 296 (note) This surely affords a strong proof that polyandry (as it is called) is contrary to nature.
1819 R. Southey Select. Lett. (1856) III. 18, I can account for the system of Polyandry, as he calls it, only in one way;..that it originated in necessity.
1885 E. Clodd Myths & Dreams i. vi. 104 The custom of female infanticide..rendering women scarce, led at once to polyandry.
1925 C. Crowell in B. C. Williams O. Henry Prize Stories of 1924 44 She practiced something akin to polyandry in a strictly orthodox, puritanical, farming community for more than a decade.
1953 R. L. Beals & H. Hoijer Introd. Anthropol. (1956) xiv. 429 The ideal pattern of marriage in Toda culture is fraternal polyandry, which dictates that when a woman marries a man she becomes, in theory at least, the wife of all his brothers.
1994 Action Asia Aug. 105/3 The custom of polyandry, in which a woman marries several men, usually brothers, was intrduced to Humla from Tibet. It is still practised by the region's ethnic Tibetans.
Etymology: POLYGAMY
< post-classical Latin
polygamia frequent marriage (early 5th cent. in Jerome), polygamy (
c1250 in a British source), fact or state of an animal's having more than one mate of the opposite sex (1752 in the passage translated in quot.
1759 at sense 2) < Hellenistic Greek
πολυγαμία frequent marriage, polygamy <
πολύγαμος often married, polygamous (see
polygamous adj.) + ancient Greek
-ία -y suffix3. Compare Middle French, French
polygamie , †
poligamie (1558 in sense ‘fact of having more than one wife at a time’,
c1690 in sense ‘fact of having had more than one wife during one's lifetime’, 1749 in sense
3; the zoological use in sense
2 is apparently not paralleled in French until later (
c1845)), German
Polygamie (mid 16th cent.). Compare
monogamyn., and also earlier
bigamy n.(Show Less)
1.
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a. The practice or custom of having more than one spouse at the same time. Contrasted with monogamy.Chiefly applied to the practice or custom (more explicitly called polygyny) in which a man has several wives at once, but also including polyandry, in which a woman has several husbands.
Sometimes also used with reference to sexual partners rather than spouses.
1538 R. Taverner tr. Erasmus Sarcerius Common Places of Script. f. ccxiv (side note) Poligamie, that is, the hauing of many wyues to gyther is forbydden.
1579 W. Fulke Heskins Parl. Repealed in D. Heskins Ouerthrowne 11 The incest of Iuda, & the polygamie of the Patriarks.
1617 F. Moryson Itinerary iii. 41 Though Poligamy be permitted among them, (I meane the hauing of many wiues for one man).
a1687 W. Petty Petty Papers (1927) II. 113The English may buy Indian girles of under 7 yeares old and use them as wives, even with polygamy regulated by authority. (underline and color is from me)
1738 S.-Carolina Gaz. 16 Mar. 2/2 Elizabeth Davis, alias Ward, alias Oram stands..indicted for Polygamy, and will take her Trial next Sessions.
1768 W. Blackstone Comm. Laws Eng. IV. xiii. 163 Polygamy can never be endured under any rational civil establishment.
1829 Times 17 Apr. 3/6, I shall endeavour to have that gentleman sent over the water for polygamy.
1879 W. E. Gladstone Gleanings Past Years VI. ii. 79 Among the Greeks of Homer we find no trace of polygamy.
1906 N. W. Thomas Kinship Organisations 108 This state is constituted by the union of several men with several women. It may be distinguished as before, into primary and secondary polygamy.
1964 Ann. Reg. 1963 358 Among social measures which came into force were the banning of polygamy and permission for inter-caste marriages.
2004 Canberra Times (Nexis) 6 June a2 She certainly overlapped her blokes, a kind of serial monogamy with relief polygamy in short bursts.
The next post will be the descriptions of my imagined polyandrous group and how they (MEN and WOMEN) pull off being polyandrous mates
as they work together to assure their childrens' survival.
One Love, and PEACE