at in Tibet
polyandry is attributed to a tax on houses in which there is a married
woman.[1151] Primarily it is due to poverty and a hard habitat. Two,
three, or even four brothers have a wife in common. The Russian traveler
adds that rich men have a wife each, or even two, and Cunningham[1152]
confirms this; that is to say, then, that the number of wives follows
directly the economic power of the man. The case only illustrates the
close interdependence of capital and marriage which we shall find at
every stage. In the days of Venetian glory "often four or five men
united to maintain one woman, in whose house they met daily to laugh,
eat, and jest, without a shadow of jealousy. If, however, the cleverness
of a woman brought a young patrician into a mesalliance, the state
promptly dissolved the bond in its own way."[1153] The polyandry of the
Nairs, on the Malabar coast, has been cited to prove that polyandry is
not due to poverty. It is due to the unwillingness to subdivide the
property of the family, which is of the modified mother-family form, all
the immediate kin holding together and keeping the property undivided.
Subdivisions of this people differ as to details of the custom and it is
now becoming obsolete. Of course "moral doctrines" have been invented to
bring the custom under a broad principle.[1154] It appears, however,
that the husbands, in the Nair system, are successive, not
contemporaneous. The custom is due to the Vedic notion that every virgin
contains a demon who leaves her with the nuptial blood, causing some
risk to her husband. Hence a maiden was married to a man who was to
disappear after a few hours, having incurred the risk.[1155] Here, then,
we have a case of aberrant mores due to a superstitious explanation of
natural facts. Polygamy of the second form above defined is limited by
cost. Although polygamy is allowed under Mohammedan law, it is not
common for a Mohammedan to have more than one wife, on account of
expense and trouble. Lane estimated at not more than one in twenty the
number of men in Egypt, in the first half of the nineteenth century, who
had more than one wife. If a woman is childless, her husband may take
another wife, especially if he likes the first one too well to divorce
her.[1156] That is to say, polygamy and divorce are alternatives. Other
authorities state that polygamy is more common and real amongst
Mohammedans than would appear from Lane's statement. In the cities of
Arab