POLYANDRY IN THIBET.

Thames Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2921, 26 June 1878, Page 2

POLYANDRY IN THIBET.

A noticeable feature in the national life is the immense number of monasteries and nunneries.which are to be found scattered: over the country. In the neighbourhood of Lhasa alone there are 11 monasteries, in which are cloistered upwards of 20,000 monks, and the , nunneries are found in like proportion. This Apparent devotion to spiritual concerns is at first sight calculated to arouse our admiration and s mpathy, but a little consideration suggesis the idea that, the religious iferrour -of these Thibetian monks and nuns is a good deal heightened by a keen sense cf sordid self-interest. If the blood of martyrs is the seed o( . churches, poverty, especially in the East, has a wonderful effect in multiplying the crop. To men who have no taste for the hard labor demanded from the soil by. its tillers, and to women who hare no means of gaining a livelihood for themselves, the secluded idleness and secured meals of a monastery or a nunnery present attractions which it is next to impossible to resist.. The women also hare an. excuse for entering religious orders which is denied to men, for there exists in Thibet one of those extraordinary marriage customs which . are occasionally met with in out-of-the-way parts of the world, and which are to be explained only by reference to the surrounding circumstances of the people. A numerous progeny, in a poor and sterile country, is doubtless a distinct evil, and it is one which naturally suggests, the imposition of a check even to those who hare never heard of Malthua or his doctrines. This we may suppose to have been the position of the Thibetians when they cast about for some plan by which they might limit the increase of the population. The plan they adopted for this purpose ii almost unique, and is called polyandry, whioh may be ex pained as being the exact reverse of polygamy; for, as in most Eastern countries it is lawful for a man to uave a plurality of wives, in Thibet it is the custom for a .woman to have a plurality of husbands. The usual practice is for two, three, or four brothers in a household to marry one wife. They all reside in one house,: and the children are ' considered to be the joint offspring of all. It is inconceivable to us thatV such, a .system should exist for an hour; but in Thibet, far from giving rise to the evils which might be expected to flow from - it, it works easily and well, and the pic- . tures whioh travellers give us of Thibetian households display a degree of domestic happiness and affection which certainly equals that enjoyed in much more favoured lands. This is a description Mr Bogle gives us of a family at whose house he spent the night:—" The house belongs to two brothers who are married to a very handsome wife, and have three of the prettiest children I ever saw. They all came to drink tea and'eat sugarcandy. After night came on the whole family assembled in a room to dance to their own singing, and spent two hoars in this manner with abundance of mirth and glee."—Cornhill Magazine;