polyandry


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Related to polyandry: fraternal polyandry

polyandry

1. the practice or condition of being married to more than one husband at the same time
2. the practice in animals of a female mating with more than one male during one breeding season
3. the condition in flowers of having a large indefinite number of stamens
Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

polyandry

a form of plural marriage (POLYGAMY) where a woman has more than one husband. It is regarded as a functional strategy for ensuring reproductive stability when there is a shortage of women. Compare POLYGYNY.
Collins Dictionary of Sociology, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2000
The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Polyandry

a rare vestigial form of group marriage in which one woman has several husbands. In the 19th century, polyandry was still extant, particularly among the Aleuts and some groups of Eskimos; it existed even later among some ethnographic groups of Tibet and Hindustan. Polyandry may be fraternal, as among the Tibetans, or unrelated, as in South India.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
References in periodicals archive ?
(3) Most of the anthropological studies on Tibetan polyandry have been conducted in Nepal, and not in Tibet proper.
The ethics (and economics) of Tibetan polyandry
Polyandry and multiple paternity was recorded almost a century ago also in the North American pygmy grasshoppers Apotettix eurycephalus and Paratettix texanus (Nabours 1929).
Multiple paternity increases phenotypic diversity in Tetrix subulata pygmy grasshoppers
Polyandry and fecundity in the Lepidoptera: can methodological and conceptual approaches bias outcomes?
Efectos de la edad y poligamia en el desempeno reproductivo de Grapholita molesta (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae)
Some sociologists report a rebirth of polyandry one wife, several husbands--in the countryside, and there's no particular reason it shouldn't spread into the cities as well.
Big bad dreams: once again, TIE asked Washington's master catastrophist to lay out his most worrisome disaster scenarios. Here are the results
Many of the shorter items (like consignee and polygamy; polyandry; polygyny) address pronunciation or explicate a Venn diagram of definition, work a basic dictionary could do.
Bibliographia
Behavioral ecologists have made important contributions to understandings of why certain marriage systems arise and persist in conjunction with subsistence mode--for example, why polyandry (marriage of one woman to multiple men) exists in only one percent of human societies, including Himalayan groups, where land shortage makes households viable only with multiple males.
Gender, masculinity, and reproduction: anthropological perspectives
." Nasr enthusiastically quotes Titus Burckhardt's rationale for Islam's approval of polygyny and rejection or polyandry, along with the right of Muslim men, but not women, to marry Christians or Jews: "Man, as spiritual officiant (imam) of his family, represents the Truth; his role corresponds to the 'active' vessel, namely the Spirit, whereas his wife corresponds to the 'passive' vessel, namely the soul." Huh?
The very Model of a Modern Muslim Eulogist. (Books)
Just as in Scripture and tradition, a central and indispensable correlation between monotheism and monogamy has been discerned and affirmed, yet wi thout requiring the instantaneous and intransigent rejection of concubinage, polyandry or polygamy, or even interracial and/or interfaith marriage as a test case of the obedience of faith, so the foundational and liberating instance of heterosexuality as a parable of human fulfillment does not require an intransigent rejection of homosexuality as a test case of the obedience of faith.
The church and same-sex relationships: a case study in hermeneutical ecology
Both systematic distribution and different patterns indicate that polyandry in asterids has evolved a number of times and even more than once within some families.
Morphology and angiosperm systematics in the Molecular era
By my calculations, approximately 2.3, although, strangely enough, the conservative marriage advocates are not offering to abolish the laws against polyandry.
Prodding the Poor to the Altar
The "anxiety" provoked by women like Hersilia playing roles in public life while having ambivalent kinship offered "a fantasy of joint possession, if not polyandry ...
Painting and Sculpture for the Tuscan Household

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