High in the misty hills of Himachal Pradesh, a recent wedding drew hundreds of villagers—not for its pomp, but for its rarity. Sunita Chauhan stood at the altar flanked by two grooms, brothers Pradeep and Kapil Negi, entering a union that has held families together in this Himalayan region for centuries.
In northern India, polyandry—the practice of a woman marrying multiple men—is known as Jodidara or Pandav Pratha, invoking the legend of Draupadi marrying the five Pandava brothers. For the Hatti community, it is less about spectacle and more about survival. “If brothers marry the same woman, there is no question of splitting farmland. The family stays united, the land stays intact,” explains Raghuvir Tomar, who grew up with two fathers.
Across the border in Yunnan, China, the Mosuo people practise what anthropologists call the walking marriage. Here, households centre on the grandmother, with lineage traced through women. Men's roles are limited largely to procreation, with little expectation of raising their children.
In Nepal's remote Dolpa region, fraternal polyandry has been common to prevent land and livestock from being divided. Tashi Sangmo, who married a 14-year-old neighbour and his younger brother, says: “Two brothers bring in the money and it is me who decides what to do with it.” Anthropologist Melvyn Goldstein notes the purpose is not to create wealth but to preserve it.
The practice is in decline. Dutch charity SNV estimated that eight in ten Dolpa households were polyandrous a generation ago; today, the figure is closer to one in five.
