There are a hundred thousand kinds of traditions and customs across the world. The bizarre among them is Polyandry in which a girl has to marry, her husband’s brothers and spend nights with them.
While everyone is well aware of Draupadi and the five Pandavas, the custom still exists in most parts of Brazil, China, Africa and also in some parts of North India. No exact reason of such a custom has been known. However, people feel that girls in these regions are less in number as compared to the number of men.
So, the men are forced to sell their elder brother’s wife. This is mostly followed in remote areas of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttarkhand and other states.
A case in point is Rajo Verma, 21, a young Indian woman who is married to five husbands, all of whom are brothers. Rajo lives in one room with the siblings and they sleep on blankets on the floor.
The mother-of-one, who sleeps each night with a different brother, does not know which of her five related husbands is the father of her son.
According to sources, Rajo and first husband Guddu wed in an arranged Hindu marriage four years ago. Since then she has married Guddu’s brothers Baiju, 32, Sant Ram, 28, Gopal, 26, and Dinesh, 19 – the latest in the line of husbands – who married her as soon as he turned 18.
‘We all have sex with her but I’m not jealous,’ first husband Guddu – who remains the only official spouse – said. ‘We’re one big happy family.’
The ancient Hindu tradition of polyandry was once widely practiced in India, but is now only observed by a minority. It sees a woman take more than one husband, typically in areas which are male dominated.
In fraternal polyandry the woman is expected to marry each of her original husband’s brothers.
It is thought to have arisen from the popular Sanskrit epic of Mahabharata, which sees Draupadi, daughter of the King of Pancha being married to five brothers.
The practice is also believed to be a way of keeping farming land in the family. It is most commonly found near the Himalayas in the north of the country, as well as in the mountainous nation of Tibet.
Rajo said she knew she was expected to accept all of her husbands, as her own mother had also been married to three brothers. She said they sleep together in turn, but that they do not have beds, just ‘lots of blankets on the floor’.
She added: ‘I get a lot more attention and love than most wives.’
PNN
