Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal: It's a Man's World, except in Shangri-La

Saturday, January 24, 2026

It's a Man's World, except in Shangri-La

One queen with many kings?

Tibet Travel (Tibet Vista) [Guide Jamyang was traveling on the Lost Horizon and] found the lost Shangri-La (Tibetan Shambhala, Western Paradise Lost), and their secret to happiness seems to be polyandry (multiple husbands for each woman).

POLYANDRY (Ancient Greek πολύ, polú, "many" + ἀνήρ, anḗr, "man") is a form of polygamy in which a female takes two or more husbands at the same time.

Polyandry is contrasted with polygyny, involving one male and two or more females. If a marriage involves a plural number of "husbands and wives" participants of each gender, then it can be called polygamy [1], group or conjoint marriage [2].

Anything he can do, I...
Let's not forget the beautiful practice of polyamory for those who can overcome the venoms of envy and jealousy.

In its broadest use, polyandry refers to sexual relations with multiple males within or without marriage.

Of the 1,231 societies listed in the 1980 Ethnographic Atlas,

186 were found to be monogamous,
453 had occasional polygyny,
588 had more frequent polygyny, and
4 had polyandry [3].

Polyandry is more frequent (less rare) than this figure suggests because it considered only those examples found in the Himalayan Buddhist mountain region (8 societies).

Feminine female power!

More recent studies have found at least 4 other societies practicing polyandry [4]. Fraternal polyandry is practiced among Tibetans in Nepal and parts of China, in which two or more brothers are married to the same female (wife), with that wife having equal sexual access to them [5, 6].

It is associated with partible paternity, the cultural belief that a child can have more than one [legal] father [4].

Several ethnic groups practicing polyandry in India identify their customs with their descent from the female Draupadi, a central character of the Mahabharata (revered in Hinduism) who was married to five brothers, although local practices may not be fraternal themselves.

Adam's Eve was his "rescuer."

WHY? Polyandry is believed to be more likely in societies with scarce environmental resources. It is believed to limit human population growth and enhance child survival [6, 7]. It is a rare form of marriage that exists among elite and peasant families [8].

For example, polyandry in the predominantly Buddhist Himalayan mountains is related to the scarcity of land. The marriage of all brothers in a family to the same wife allows family land to remain in the same family's hads undivided.

If every brother married separately and had children, family land would be split into unsustainably small plots.

In contrast, very poor persons who do not own land are less likely to practice polyandry in Buddhist India's Ladakh and Zanskar [6].

In Europe, the splitting up of land was prevented through the social practice of impartible inheritance. With most siblings disinherited, many of them became celibate monks and priests [9]. Buddhism seems to have had a better solution, though the vast majority of male and female Tibetan Buddhists at one time or other became Vajrayana monastics at least for some part of their lives. More