to the absolute lack of honour or decency in Tibetan males and females,
the arrangement seems to work as satisfactorily as any other kind of
marriage.

I asked what would happen in the case of a man marrying a second sister,
and so acquiring marital rights over all her younger sisters, if another
man came and married her eldest sister. Would all the brides of the first
man become the brides of the second? No, they would not; and the second
man would have to be satisfied with only one wife. However, if the second
sister were left a widow, and her husband had no brothers, then she would
become the property of her eldest sister's husband, and with her all the
other sisters.

[Illustration: TIBETAN WOMAN]

It must not be inferred from these strange matrimonial laws that jealousy
is non-existent in Tibet among both men and women; trouble does
occasionally arise in Tibetan house- or tent-holds. As, however, the
Tibetan woman is clever, she generally contrives to arrange things in a
manner conducive to peace. When her husband has several brothers, she
despatches them on different errands in every direction, to look after
yaks or sheep, or to trade. Only one remains and he is for the time being
her husband; then when another returns he has to leave his place and
becomes a bachelor, and so on, till all the brothers have, during the
year, had an equal period of marital life with their single wife.

Divorce is difficult in Tibet and involves endless complications. I
inquired of a Tibetan lady what would she do in case her husband refused
to live with her any longer.

[Illustration: THE LADY IN QUESTION]

"'Why did you marry me?' I would say to him," she exclaimed. "'You found
me good, beautiful, wise, clever, affectionate. Now prove that I am not
all this!'"

This modest speech, she thought, would be quite sufficient to bring any
husband back to reason, but all the same a number of Tibetans find it
convenient occasionally to desert their wives, eloping to some distant
province, or over the boundary. This procedure is particularly hard on
the man's brothers, as they all remain the sole property of the abandoned
bride. On the same principle, when a husband dies, the wife is inherited
by his brothers.

[Illustration: TIBETAN CHILDREN]

A very painful case came before the court of the Jong Pen at Taklakot.
The husband of a Tibetan lady had died, and she, being enamoured of a
handsome youth some twenty years younger than h