India has a variety of traditions across different cultures and states. Some may make sense and some may sound really weird. Here we have some really weird reasons for which Polygamous and Polyandrous marriages exist in India even though such marriages are prohibited and illegal in India.
1. Girl Marrying All The Brothers Of Her Husband To Keep The Land Undivided
The major reason the tradition is still practiced in rural areas because those people have a very small land which is their only family income and they cannot afford to divide the land among all the sons. If each son will have a separate wife, the land will have to be divided among all sons and it will not be enough for a single family. To keep it undivided among the sons and their future generations, all sons are married to one woman, who is impartial to any one of them. Later when she has sons, all the sons consider the eldest husband as their father and then they are married again to a single woman to keep the tradition and land intact. The woman generally doesn’t know which sons belong to which husband and they generally won’t care much about it.
Another reason observed is the shortage of brides for grooms in addition to the economics of land. In some rural areas the woman to man ratio is so low that the families decided to marry all sons to a single woman.
Sarai Chola, a village fifteen kilometer from Morena district in Madhya Pradesh is a place where polygamy is still said to be practiced. All the brothers of one family get married to a single woman since the number of females in the area is very less and finding a bride for every groom is not possible. When a man marries a woman, all his brothers have a right over the woman. There are very few families in the town where one woman is married to a single man. Some women have up to eight husbands. For more details read here.
Rajo with her five husband and child. Credits: Shariq Allaqaband
Similar tradition of fraternal polyandry is still practiced in a small village in Dehradun, Uttarakhand. A woman named Rajo Verma, is married to one of the brothers officially who has 3 elder brothers and one younger brothers. All the brothers sleep with Rajo taking turns on different nights. Her official husband Guddu says ‘We all have sex with her but I’m not jealous. We’re one big happy family’. For more details read here.
Similar other families also exist in Himachal Pradesh in the areas of Malang and Lahaul where terrains are difficult, weather is harsh and croplands are tiny. Dividing those among the sons will leave everyone with almost nothing. For detailed story read here.
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2. These 3 Are So Close That They Could Not Live Without Each Other
Now if you thought that such marriages exist only in rural areas and among uneducated people, you are about to find out the truth. In Kolkata, a Hindu man married two sisters simultaneously in 2008. All of them belong to so called upper class of the society and are well educated. The elder sister Jhuma is a post graduate whereas the younger one holds a doctorate. The trio has been very close to each other working in a business and spend around 16 to 17 hours of the day together working and chatting. They are so much used to each other that they can’t think of life without any one of them and hence decided to marry altogether. The girls seems to have no jealousy with each other and enjoy a wonderful relationship, hence they believe everything will workout well.
Their parents also gave them the green signal saying that if they are content with this, who are they to stop them. The guy Kaushik, married the elder sister as per the Hindu marriage act and got into wedlock as per the social rituals. Uttam Majumdar, Calcutta High Bar association vice president said’ It is not a crime to marry two people, as long as both the girls are in the agreement for everything. If one of them raises a legal question, then there may be problems’. For more details read here.
3. Multiple Water Wives In Drought Stricken Villages
Sakharam with his 3 wives. Source: ibtimes
It is becoming a norm in a village Denganmal in Maharashtra where men have to marry multiple women just to make sure that the family has enough water to survive. The villages have only two wells for drinking water and the long walk to the well and waiting in the line for turn can take hours every day. There has to be a dedicated person to bring water to home in such cases. Bhagat who works as a day laborer in the farm, had to marry for the third time since his first wife stays busy raising the kid and his second wife fell sick which left them with no way to fetch water. Now his third wife has to bring water for the family. The area remains drought stricken leaving them with no other option to get water for their family. For more details read here.
4. The Elder Daughter Could Not Conceive As Per The Astrologer
Shailendra Kumar in Patna tied knot with the two sisters Aarti Kumari and Puja Kumari in 2008. He walked around the holy fire with both the sisters while the priest chanted mantras. Aarti’s parents were having a hard time finding groom for her since the words from the astrologer spread out that she will never be able to give birth to a child. They offered Shailendra that he can marry to the younger daughter if Aarti is not able to conceive, to which the guy responded by offering them to marry both of them together. Their parents agreed to it and got both the sisters married to him. For more details read here.
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5. Widow Offers Her Daughter To Her New Husband And They Both Share Him
Orola with her husband and her mother. Credits: Eric Rechsteiner. Source: Marieclaire
A practice that is slowly diminishing from the Mandi tribe in Bangladesh and India where the widow mother if remarrying has to offer her daughter to her new husband as another wife. The tradition is practiced so that the second wife can take over the duties as she grow up, there is a fertile woman in the family to produce children and the daughter can protect her mother’s property when she dies. Although the arrangement sounds simple but it does gets very complicated in some cases due to jealousy. As the young daughters grow up and husband gets more inclined to them, it becomes a problem for the mothers to share their husband and they start considering their daughters as their competitor to win over the husband, same is the case for daughters in some cases.
One such example is of Orola Dlabot who was married to her mothers second husband when she was 3 years old. After hitting puberty, she discovered that she was already married with the same man her mother was married to and that she had to share all her duties as a second bride with her mother including sex with the husband. For more details read here.
6. The Siblings Are Inseparable And Got Married To The Same Spouse
Krishna Soni is the man who married three sisters Shobha, Reena and Pinky Patel in 2007 in Chitrakoot in Uttar Pradesh. The three sisters are said to be inseparable, as they have the same taste for food, fashion, colors and even their husband. The guy Krishna is a vegetable seller and Shobha the eldest sister married him first, and later the other two sisters followed as they didn’t want to be left out from the best bargain. The three girls when interviewed seem to be really happy about living with each other and are content with what they have. They said ‘It is bliss to live with a man who has so much love to give. He is the living God of love’. A statement that every man would love to hear about himself.
Girl’s father didn’t seems to be hesitant about the marriage and said the Boy is God’s special creation, and this is what Thakurji has willed. There had been many rumors around the village that – the girl’s father force married them to Krishna because he believed this would make him wealthier; the girls believed their husband was reincarnation of Lord Krishna; the marriage was a blue film racket etc. The inspector of the area when informed about this, made many rounds of the house and interrogated from the people around but found out that all four of them live happily and the girls have married him happily and there was no force involved. As per the law the first wife can lodge a complaint against the husband if he remarries but in this case they are all happy together so the police did not intervene. For more details read here.
A similar case of polyandry exists in Badaun in U.P, where twin brothers married the same girl in 2007. They are known to have same habits, likings and same love as well such that they ended up marrying the same girl. Twins Kunwarpal and Chadrapal Singh are said to be inseparable as there has been many obstacles they had to overcome to stay together. Both of them had post graduate degrees and were working in Delhi but left it and returned back to their village to stay together. Not only they are inseparable they are also indistinguishable. People who are even close to them cannot sometimes recognize who is who. For more details read here.
7. Man Marries Daughter In Presence Of Wife Claiming Divine Sanction
Ali with his wife and daughter. source: timeofindia
Out of all the reasons this is the most weird of all. Afazuddin Ali, a 36 year old married his own teenage daughter in the presence of his wife who was also the witness of the marriage in the year 2007. To cover his incestuous lust, the man claims to have divine sanction with the daughter. The news came out when the daughter became pregnant and people started questioning, When the word got out there was outrage and anger among people to attack the family. Police arrested all three and presented them to the court but they were released as there was no complaint against them and police did not bring a case of rape against Ali. For more details read here.
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