ABSTRACT
Two women living in polyandrous families in agricultural regions of Tibet tell of why these relationships work. Polyandry is more common in areas where resources are scarce, such as Tibet, with its extreme climate. Each of the women—one born in 1928, the other in 1944—married two brothers and bore several children. One woman had nine pregnancies, usually two years apart, and gave birth to eight children, seven of whom survived. The other bore thirteen children, twelve of whom survived. The women tell of how their marriages were arranged, describe the roles each of the family members fulfil and affirm that without polyandry, families’ landholdings diminished when individual members each carved off their share when they married out. These women were relatively well off and content with their lives. The younger suggested that a woman must have three or four husbands on account of the amount of work there was to do and the roles assigned to each of the family members.
