Hindu Law and Custom (Recht und Sitte) c7.483

c7.483

§ 15. Polyandry and promiscuity. Can we find traces and relics of sexual promiscuity, matriarchy, polyandry and allied institutions in the ancient literature of India, which, according to modern theories, have everywhere formed the starting point of the development of family law? As the levirate (niyoga) even may be explained away in another way (§ 20), the clearest trace of institutions of this kind lies in polyandry or group-marriage. The best known and oft-quoted example of same—the marriage of Draupadī with the five Pāṇḍava brothers, the heroes of the Mahābhārata, seems to have been reflected in a passage of Āp. (2, 27, 2ff.)—as most of the usages of the epic literature are reflected in the Smṛtis—who declares the practice of marrying a girl to a whole family to be an obsolete custom prohibited in his time. Bṛh. 27,20 speaks even more clearly about it, who says that group-marriage (kule kanyāpradānam) is prevalent only "in other lands" i. e., in the South,—there however even at the present day (samprati). Also in the few other cases over and above the marriage of Draupadi, which may be taken from the Mah. as proof of polyandry (*bahūnām ekapatnītā* or *ekasyā bahubhartṛtā*), it is principally only the matrimonial connection of one woman with a number of brothers. Even the well-known law (M. 9,182 etc.) that the son of one of several brothers may be regarded as the common son of all may refer only to group-marriage if we connect it with polyandrous connections disregarding the interpretation of the commentators.