Sex role reversal: the wattled jacana
{"Image DocumentName": "Sex role reversal: the wattled jacana", "Image ImageDescription": "Male uniparental care. Causes male to carry most of the cost of offspring production Results in choosy males and ornamental, eager females. Most birds have biparental care, and these do not show sex role reversal. There are but two tribes in the world where polyandry is stable, preferred, and regarded as the normative as the normative form of marriage. These are the Todas of southern India and the Marquesans of Polynesia. Among the Todas the preferred form of polyandry is fraternal, that is, the wife marries a series of brothers (cp. the Banyankole of Africa). Only occasionally is the nonfraternal type to be found. Among the Marquesans the nonfraternal form is common. In Toda polyandry several brothers establish a common household with one woman. Paternity of the children is determined by ritual in which one brother presents the wife with a toy bow and arrow and the offdpring following this rite are credited to the husband who executed the ritual. Only when another husband carries out out the bow-and-arrow ceremony does paternity go to him, but again all the children are ascribed to the last husband to carry out the rite, even though he may have been dead for years. Among the Todas polyandry is definitely associated with low economic status. In fact the nobility not infrequently practices polygyny. When the co-husbands are brothers they occupy one house, but in the occasional examples of nonfraternal polyandry they have separate dwellings and the wife rotates her visits among them. In the Marquesas polyandrous marriage is as stable as any other. There is usually a main husband who acts as an agent for his wife in the management of family affairs. The other husbands are not his brothers but the younger sons of families of lower rank, or male concubines . They are, however, accorded considerable latitude and may leave one household and join another. Here, too, economic conditions are severe. Cultivation is difficult and the islands are subject to periodic droughts leading to crop failures, water shortages, and severe epidemics. Fishing is dangerous and difficult in the deep waters off the mountaineous islands. Given that 80% of all the peoples in the world allow polygynous marriage (Marvin K. Opler, Polyandry, Am.J.Sociol., Sept. 1943) it is extraordinary that an exception such as polyandry exists at all. Everywhere else in Polynesia polygyny is the norm. In the Americas amomng the Indians, polyandry occurred sporadically, frequently taking the form of a temporary union prior to marriage in the Shoshoni tribe. The occurrence of fraternal polyandry amongst the south American Taruro and Cawahib implies an institutionalized practice, but polyandrous families were infrequent. The Caingang, describes as casual in their regulation of sex, had no more than 14% polyandrous marriages. They also provide the only instance of polygandrous, or group marriage (barring the north American Oneida community which will be discussed presently), totaling 8% of 308 marriages ( The Encyclopaedia of Sexual Behavior, Vol.1, ed. Albert Ellis & Albert Abarand, London, 1961, p.105). Polyandry is a form of marriage socially sanctioned and culturally patterned involving residential cohabitation as well as sexual rights (George Peter Murduck, Social Structure, MacMillan, New York, 1949). However, it occurs so infrequently that it may be regarded as an ethnological curiosity. Although some cultural anthropologists have described the occurrence of polyandry in certain north American Indian tribes, this is, strictly speaking, not the case. What has been mistaken for polyandry, Opler notes (Marvin K. Opler, Polyandry), was usually an example of extra-marital sex of a woman with a number of men, sometimes the brothers of her husband. Polyandry is highly infrequent, perhaps because it goes counter to the biological tendency (fallen human nature) of the male to demand exclusive possession of his mate, or because it runs counter to the divine pattern of the patriarchy which the biblically-based Hebrew-Christian theologies subscribe to. As far as the former proposition is concerned, if it is true, then culture counteracts biology when polyandry occurs. The explanation is complex, but an important consideration seems to be the scarcity of women in societies where polyandry is practiced, a scarcity resulting from female infanticide. Among the Todas, for example, the sex-ratio was males to 100 females. But why the infanticide? The answer is probably the extreme poverty of the people, resulting from the inhospitable environment. That this is not the sole reason for polyandry is shown by the fact that other societies have as extreme poverty with infanticide, and still others practice infanticide when the poverty is not so great (e.g. abortion amongst Asian women in Great Britain). In the remote Himalayas, where arable land is scarce, fraternal polyandry is practiced, a group of brothers sharing a wife. All the children are regarded as the offspring of the eldest brother. When the brothers die, the estate goes to the sons, who in turn marry one wife. Polyandry seems to be associated with a system of land tenure that prevents fragmentation of already small holdings. There is also a nonfraternal varietry, such as that found among the Marquesans. However, polyandry is very rare and is incompatible with the surplus of women generally to be found in human societies. Emlen et al", "Image XResolution": "37", "Image YResolution": "37", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Centimeter", "Image Software": "SlidePlayer", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered"}