WHAT ARE THE TYPES OF POLYANDRY? :3. ASSOCIATED

The last form of polyandry is a combination of polyandry and polygyny, as women are married to several men simultaneously and the same men are married to several women. It is found in some tribes of native Americans as well as villages in northern Nigeria and the northern cameroons.

Other Classifications: Equal polygamy, Polygynandry


The LELE of the Kasai-ASSOCIATED POLYANDRY with partible paternity

Unity within the village is very important, and
the sort of polyandry they practice supports that.

Polygyny is a widely accepted and high status form of marriage for the Lele. Polyandry occurs when the village acquires a hohombe, or a village wife. She will have come from another village, either by force, seduced, taken as a refugee, or betrothed from infancy, and is treated with much honor by the people in her
new village.

A village wife is married to several men in the village who may or may not have other wives already. The position is very prestigious for a woman, as is evidenced in her honeymoon period.

A village wife is treated with much honor and enjoys her honeymoon which lasts for a period of 6 months or longer. She does not cook, draw water, cut firewood or carry out any tasks expected of the other women. As she is also allowed to accompany her husbands on hunting escapades, whereas that is not normally allowed. And since she didn't cook, she would eat the food and delicacies sent to her husbands from their mother's and/or the other wives.

She would sleep with a different man in her hut every two nights, and may have relations with any village member during the day.

When the honeymoon period ends, the
village wife is allotted a certain number of husbands, sometimes as many as five. She lives with these men, cooks and has relations with them. Within time, she may eliminate husbands from her household until she has just two or three.

A child of the village-wife is called mwanababola, meaning "child of the village" because he or she belongs to all the men (partible paternity). And they share responsibility for paying any future dowries.

As noted before, the non-fraternal polyandry practiced by the Lele is of high status, as is the village wife (although other women in the society, outside of the union, are of fairly low status). The status of men within the union seem to be equal during the honeymoon period,
when they all have equal access to the village wife.

Also, after the village wife has chosen the final two or three husbands to live in a polyandrous state with, there is no mention of any sort of hierarchical system among those men.

Probably the most important thing to note about this system of polyandry is the function it serves. Although the form is very different from other African forms, as well as Indian forms, they all serve a similar purpose: forming alliances.

WHAT ARE THE TYPES OF POLYANDRY? : 2. SUCCESSIONAL

Unlike fraternal polyandry, where a woman will receive a number of husbands simultaneously, a woman will acquire one husband after another in sequence.

This form is flexible. These men may or may not be related. And it may or may not incorporate a hierarchical system, where one husband is considered primary and may be allotted certain rights or privileges not awarded to secondary husbands. Such as, biologically fathering a child.

In this particular system, the secondary husbands have the power to succeed the primary if he were to become severely ill or be away from the home for a long period of time or is otherwise rendered incapable of fulfilling his husbandly duties.

Successional polyandry can likewise be egalitarian, where all husbands are equal in status and receive the same rights and privileges. In this system, each husband will have a wedding ceremony and share paternity of whatever children she may bare.

Other Classifications: Secondary
Examples:

The Irigwe Tribe- Non-fraternal Successional

Irigwe Tribesmen during a ritualistic dance.1959

The Irigwe of Nigeria are one specific instance of a society that practices polyandry in the form of primary and secondary marriages. The parents of the couple typically arrange the primary marriage while the bride- and groom-to-be are young children.

The secondary marriages are initiated by the couples themselves, are relatively inexpensive, and nearly always function to produce offspring. The woman plays a large role in her own secondary marriage arrangements as she is expected to accept several engagements from different suitors, but her father ultimately must approve before she is able to accept.

A woman's control over her secondary marriages exists not only before she is married, but also after she bears her first child. She is able to decide which engagements she would like to honor and which she would not. While there is no specific mention of women's status among the lrigwe, the amount of control one has over her own future may indicate that women have relatively high status in the marital union. " ... while men are not ranked in these unions, wives hold a special status in some societies." Although the Irigwe were of rather low socioeconomic status, the unions within the society seem to be highly regarded.

The Shoshone Native Indian Tribe-Fraternal Successional Levirate

For the Shoshoni, the levirate required, as it typically does, that when widowed, a woman marry her deceased husband's brother. It also required that if a woman takes a second husband while her first husband is still alive, the second husband must be a brother of the first.

The levirate requirements, then, allowed for an easy transition when the first husband passed away, and encouraged fraternal polyandry within the society.

Shoshone Indian family in traditional dress.1895

Brothers in the union were of equal status, both were called "father" by their children, and biological paternity was not of any relevance. also reports of Shoshoni polyandry that it seemed "not to have been uncommon ... and carried no social stigma" . A function of fraternal polyandry among the Shoshoni was that while one husband was away from the home hunting, another was present at home with the wife. The Pawnee seemed to have used fraternal polyandry in a similar manner.

The Pawnee Native Indian Tribe-Fraternal Heirarchal Successional

The Pawnee practiced fraternal polyandry. A younger brother was taught to think of his older brother's wife as his own wife, and usually was invited to live with the couple once he became a young man. The secondary husband was allowed sexual access to the wife at the discretion of the primary husband, possibly after the younger brother demonstrated his bravery and prowess on the warpath. The younger brother usually stayed with his older brother's family for a few years until he married a wife of his own, thus it was common for polyandrous marriages among the Pawnee to be impermanent.

His primary role in his older brother's household was to provide protection for the wife when his brother was absent for any length of time. He was also to guard her sexuality to ensure that she was not having extramarital affairs. Such an offense could result in the woman being killed .

There was definite stratification among the brothers within the union; the older brother possessed more power and control than the younger brother, however, the status of the wife in the union was lower than that of either brother. Fairly high instances of warfare as well as necessity for long hunting trips, both requiring the primary husband to be away from the house for long periods of time, were factors that contributed to the occurrence of polyandry among the Pawnee.

WHAT ARE THE TYPES OF POLYANDRY? : 1. FRATERNAL

There are three main types of ways in which polyandry can be practiced: Fraternal, Successional and Associated.

Fraternal polyandry is when one woman is married to two or more brothers who hold equal responsibilities in the household. The marriage of all of the brothers is usually performed in one ceremony or agreement, and the entire family is seen by the community as a single family unit.

Other Classifications: Classical, Formal, Adelphic.

Examples of 𝗙𝗥𝗔𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗡𝗔𝗟 𝗣𝗢𝗟𝗬𝗔𝗡𝗗𝗥𝗬 𝗶𝗻 𝗜𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗮

One example is Rajo Verma, who lives in a small Dehradun village with her baby son and her five husbands. Rajo stands by this tradition. All her husbands are brothers..Rajo said that she was always asked to accept all of her husbands as the practice has been continuing in her community for generations. She also mentioned that her mother had beenmarried to three brothers. Rajo mentioned the names of her husbands, Sant Ram (28), Bajju (32), Gopal (26), Guddu (21), and Dinesh (19). She is intimate with all five of them and does not differentiate among them. Guddu Verma, her first and official husband, agreed with her and said that jealousy has never been an issue and that they live like one big happy family. 

Sunita Devi, a resident of Sangla Valley in Kinnaur, Himachal Pradesh is a part of yet another unusual family. She is wife to two brothers, Ranjit Singh, and Chander Prakash.Even though their marriage isn’t considered legal, it is a happy union of the three. Sunita says that she is ‘lucky to have the affection of two husbands.’ She reveals that husbands in a polyandry handle domestic duties like cooking and helping with childcare, while the women are in charge of the monetary resources.