Although various phenomena involving multiple males involved with one female have always fascinated anthropologists, there appears to be no common explanation for polyandry. This failure has raised questions about the similarities between different societies where this type of behavior is observed. From Berrman's (1975) point of view, polyandry does not have the same modality in all societies and the basis, function, costs and consequences of polyandry must be studied individually in each society (Goldstein, 1981). Polyandry is the rarest form of marriage and has been observed in only four societies: the Toda, the Marquesans, the Nayar and the Tibetans (Lee, 1982). Even in polyandrous populations, most marriages appear to be monogamous. However, the cultural definition of ideal marriage in these societies is polyandry. It is often assumed that men have a greater tendency to marry more than one woman and not women to have more than one man at the same time, which is why polyandry is defined as unnatural (Lee,1982). There are various factors that influence a society's adoption of polyandry. Extreme poverty has been among the major factors that can influence a society to practice polyandry. A polyandrous marital system can serve as a coping mechanism to reduce difficulties caused by resource scarcity in societies where families cannot support population growth (Lee,1982). This system works by regulating the size of the population. The justification is that a woman married to more than one man cannot produce more children than a woman married to a man in a given period of time and therefore very few children are produced as a result.... middle of paper ...with an individualistic approach. Younger siblings will therefore abandon the polyandrous marriage system in considerable numbers (Levine, 1988). The population will increase accordingly as more women of reproductive age will be exposed to the risk of conceiving. This negative feedback pattern observed in Tibet served as an efficient process to rapidly maximize or minimize population growth depending on resource availability. Works Cited Goldstein, Melvyn C.1981 New Perspectives on Tibetan Fertility and Population Decline. American Ethnologist 8(4): 721-738, 325-327.Lee, Gary.1982 Family structure and interaction: A comparative analysis. 2nd ed. Minnesota: University of Minnesota PressLevine, Nancy E.1988 The Dynamics of Polyandry: Kinship, Domesticity, and Population on the Tibetan Border. Chicago: University of Chicago.