The custom of taking multiple wives, or polygyny, is well known. The opposite custom, the taking of two or more husbands or polyandry, is rather less well known.
The custom evolved in human cultures where resources, particularly land and food, were scarce, and/or where women were allowed to own property or ancestral titles of rank.
In pockets of India, Bhutan, Nepal and Tibet the custom of polyandry continued until relatively recently, particularly amongst the many minority peoples of the region. While the custom has now been banned in Tibet by Chinese authorities, in India the practice seems to be dying a natural death.
A family has a daughter. A young man wishes to enter the family, to live under its roof, and become the husband of the daughter. He consults with the parents, and if they arrive at an agreement in regard to the amount of property he is to turn over to them, he takes up his abode in the hut and becomes the husband of the daughter. It may be that there are other young men desirous of partaking of the same good fortune.
They are not at all deterred by the fact that the girl is already provided with a husband. They present themselves at the hut, make offers of certain property, and, unless the first husband has paid what is regarded in Tibet as a very large sum in order to secure the young woman as his exclusive possession, she becomes likewise the wife of these other claimants for her hand, and the whole family live together in the same hut and in the utmost harmony.
It rarely happens that a young man thinks so much of the girl he weds in this peculiar fashion as to be jealous of others who also desire to be her husband.
The children are always regarded as belonging to the woman, and the fathers lay no claims upon them. Polyandry is not established by law, but it is a custom which probably arose at some time when the female population was less numerous than the male, and it has been continued largely on account of the poverty of the people.