Polyandry in Ancient India

In most parts of ancient India, polyandry, the practice of one woman marrying two or more husbands simultaneously, was an impossibility for ordinary people of respectable class. According to Smriti Chandrika by Brihaspati, it is a great sin to take the wife of brother.

But that is not to say that it was unknown. The most famous example of polyandry in ancient India is found in the great epic the Mahabharata where the five Pandava brothers, sharing their wife Draupadi in common. This shows that the idea of polyandry was not an abhorrence to the common people of ancient India. Otherwise the editors of the Mahabharata would have certainly invented four sisters of Draupadi. Apart from that there are fleeting references to polyandry in the ancient literature of India.

In ancient India niyoga was well known. Niyoga was the practice of acting on behalf of a husband by his brother if the husband had died without producing male child. Niyoga has been frequently mentioned in earlier Indian lawbooks. However with the passage of time the practice of niyoga began to be frowned upon.