POLYANDRY IN KOTA SOCIETY2

Abstract

POLYANDRY IN KOTA SOCIETYl By DAVID G. MANDELBAUM T HE Kotas of the Nilgiri Hills in South India are not polyandrous in the strict sense of the term. A woman may have but one husband and can acquire another only by divorce from or after the death of her previous spouse. What Kota polyandry amounts to is that a man's brothers have free sexual access to his wife, and when a man is ill or incapacitated or in any way unable to fulfill his husbandly duties, then his brothers take his place. The brothers are, in effect, secondary husbands. The Kotas are the neighbors of the famed Todas on the Nilgiri plateau. Unlike the Todas, whose whole culture pivots around the care of buffalo, the Kotas have more diversified interests. They are agriculturalists, but also keep herds of cattle and buffalo. A large part of their livelihood is earned by handiwork; they are the aboriginal artisans of the Nilgiri area and provide the other tribes with iron tools, wooden utensils, and pottery. In addition, they are professional musicians who furnish the music that is required for the ceremonies of the other tribes. There are seven Kota villages, each divided into three exogamous father­ sibs. The same three sib names occur in every village, but each village sib counts as a distinct social entity. A man belonging to the aker gens may not marry a woman of the same gens in his own village, but is permitted to take a wife from the aker gens in any of the other villages. Marriage is a simple affair; the bridegroom bows to the feet of the bride's father, pays a token fee of four annas and a bride price ranging from ten to one hundred rupees. Residence is patrilocal. The normal household consists of several brothers and their wives and children living together under the paternal roof. When the growing families can no longer be accommodated in a single house because of the limitations of space, each of the married brothers establishes his family in a separate house. A man may have more than one wife and so the Kota marital system includes true polygyny as well as fraternal polyandry. A woman lives only in the house of her legal husband and he is recognized as the father of the children she bears. The husband has precedence to his wife's attention and favors. But in the absence of the husband, any of his brothers have the right and the obligation to act in his stead. It is a right in the sense that a husband may not attempt to interfere and may not exhibit any signs of jealousy when he finds his brother with his wife. It becomes an obligation 1 Read before the Twenty-fifth Indian Science Congress, Calcutta, 1938. Fieldwork done under a Fellowship in the Biological Sciences, National Research Council, 1937, and under the auspices of the Institute of Human Relations, Yale University.