Text: Qingyan Xiaosheng A
Editor|Qingyan Xiaosheng a
Sources: All of the information stated in this article is based on reliable sources, and is detailed at the end of the article
Many boys say that "polygamy" is their dream now.
However, after all, it was never thought that it would become a reality, and "polyandry" is even more so.
In modern times, many women want to live a life of "polyandry" after hearing men talk about "polygamy".
But what they didn't expect was that there really existed in a country with a "polyandry" system, but it was different from the world of female dignity imagined by many women.
In this country, the status of women is not high, and it can even be said that they live in dire straits every day.
So, let's see why such feudal dross still exists!
The tradition of "polyandry".
Polyandry is a term that means that a woman can legally marry many men.
Many women living in today's era have not thought about this possibility, but after all, they just think about it.
After all, although there is a history of matrilineal societies in the world, they have also passed quickly, and they have been replaced by patrilineal societies.
Therefore, in ancient times, they were all polygamous, and in modern times, such feudal dross was "abandoned" even earlier.
For example, in China, if a woman or a man has two families at the same time, then it is a violation of the law, and the crime of "bigamy" is not a joke.
But in this part of Nepal, polyandry does exist and is still practised today.
Nepal is only a small 150,000 kilometers of land between China and India.
However, there are 30 million people growing in this small land, and India is not rich, we know this.
Nepal, which borders the mainland and India, is naturally not wealthy, and because of the topography, Nepal can only live on agriculture.
As in China, Nepalese farming relies on pure manpower, and while production resources are limited, it also makes every family want a son.
After all, boys have a lot of strength, and having a boy is equivalent to having a productive family.
But there is also a drawback, that is, they can hardly afford more sons, and some families can't even afford two.
One is that the half-grown boy can eat them, and the other is because they have no money for their son to marry a daughter-in-law.
It may be that a family can only save up to one daughter-in-law's money, and in such a living environment, although the bride price of women is not high, it cannot stand the very poverty of their country.
As a result, Nepal has introduced a system that sounds rather ridiculous, and that is "polyandry".
Traditionally, Nepalese women are married twice, once between the ages of seven and nine, and many of the little brides are dressed very nicely and holding a fruit in their hands.
And the fruit in their hands is their "groom", and after the marriage ceremony, this fruit is wrapped in red cloth.
It is rumored that this fruit will accompany them for a lifetime, although it is not known how this fruit is preserved for ten or twenty years without rotting.
But it is a ritual that has been passed down in their country for many years.
The second marriage of a Nepalese woman is a marriage in the traditional sense, because many families in Nepal are unable to marry each son.
Therefore, when a woman marries into a man's family, she is not just a man's wife, but the common wife of the men's brothers of the right age.
First, it is a national custom in Nepal, and secondly, because they want to pass on their ancestry.
But there are a lot of problems, what if there are three or four brothers in this family?
An alternative to married life
On the day of their second wedding, Nepalese women are basically with the "big brother" of the man's family.
But after getting married, it became several people living together.
Nepali law states that women in Nepal can only marry a maximum of five men.
However, when conditions permit, the woman made sure that each male had offspring, which also led to Nepalese women becoming almost "fertility tools".
After all, no man feels that he can't do it when it comes to having children, even if his family doesn't have that condition, he wants to have his own offspring.
The most unusual thing is that the husbands of the wives are brothers, and this may be because they think that the children born to women are not good.
If the father of the child is related by blood, then even if he can't tell whether it is his own child or not, it can ensure that it is their child and raised together.
In this regard, it can be seen that the Nepalese people are "crazy", whether it is their own or not, whether the "wife" has several husbands at the same time, as long as it is in their own family.
In terms of being the master of the house, it is more open, and many families in Nepal are not enough to support every male to have a high status, so they can only listen to the eldest brother.
When the child grows up, he only calls "big brother" his father, and the others are uncles.
In a sense, this can be regarded as another kind of "return to common sense".
However, such a marriage mechanism has brought considerable trouble to women, and it is quite harmful to women's bodies to have children all the time.
Since ancient times, women giving birth to children are like being spared in the ghost gate, so women in our country need confinement every time they give birth.
With this method, the body can recover quickly.
But as far as Nepalese families are concerned, they can't live happily, how can they provide good food and drink.
Therefore, the average life expectancy of Nepalese women is relatively low, and even if the body is able to resist it, there are many diseases.
It can be seen that the system of polyandry is not necessarily very good, and the status of women is not only very low, but also has no "human rights".
epilogue
Women in Nepal not only have to have children all the time, but also work on the farm every day, often without enough to eat because of their low status.
Even during menstruation, which is a painful time for women, they are driven out to live with cows.
Nepal's bad habit is that women have bad menstruation and bring misfortune to the family.
As a result, many women spend this time in barns.
It wasn't until more recent times, around 2017, that Nepal's government changed the law to change this bad practice.
The government said that if such acts were repeated, they would be severely punished.
We can see that Nepalese women are getting better and better, from menstrual legislation to the emergence of the first female president.
All of them are direct proof that women can survive on their own.
Information sources:
Beiqing.com: Polyandry in Nepal
News: Nepali Customs
China News Network: Nepal's two new codes have come into effect