Marriage customs among the Nayars have caused much controversy in India among social scientists and jurists. As wars became less common among the Nayars, they moved toward monogamy. Each husband would spend a few days at a time with her and the privilege of hanging his weapons on her door.
#SOCIAL MONOGAMY VS SERIAL MONOGAMY FREE#
From adolescence, she was free to copulate with several husbands, presented to her by her mother or uncle. He received a fee for this and was considered the official “father” of her children. This tribe had the belief in which the woman was “married” to a man she rarely saw. The Nayars, a warrior group of the Malabar coast of India. The Mende's are a perfect example of polygynous families, but only one of thousands of cultures with such structures. Everyone works as a group and as individuals with the husband, which is also the perfect cooking pot for competition and feuds. The wives are ranked in order or marriage to the husband and from the status of the family in which they first came from. They have multiple wives with multiple children from different wives. The Mende culture is patrilineal, patrilocal, and polygamous. Most husbands can only afford to send one or two children to school, which is why there can be such fierce competition. The wives depend on their children to support them after the husband dies, so education and the passing down of land or cash is crucial. The rivalries between wives can lead to bitter feuds and divorces. The husbands are supposed to avoid showing favoritism, especially when it is out of ranking or anger and jealousy can break out in the family. The wives are usually ranked higher depending on who married first, and with the addition of the status of the families they came from. The competition between co-wives usually focused on how many children each wife had and what these children are given in materials and education. This large family of mothers and children may again lead to jealousy and competition for the husband or father. The connection between the children and the true mother and same mother siblings is always different and usually stronger than with the other children. Polygynous families may have children from multiple mothers and the same father. Whether there is jealousy between co-wives depends on the specific situation, individuals involved, and cultural attitudes toward polygyny. The wives also have relationships with one another as individuals and as a group. All of the wives interact with the husband at different times individually and as a whole. Polygynous families are families with husbands who have multiple wives. \( \newcommand\): A Mende woman in the village of Njama in Kailahun District