Many Wives, Many Husbands

Marriage, Power and Family in Indian History

CA. S. Muralidharan
Business Mentor and Thought Leader

When we read that a king had many wives, it is tempting to see it simply as a story of wealth and personal pleasure.

But a closer study reveals a larger story—about political alliances, succession, land, caste, religion, household labour and the unequal power of men and women.

It also reveals several paradoxes.

A king might marry several women to strengthen his kingdom, yet the competing claims of their children could later divide it.

A family might arrange for several brothers to share one wife to keep its land together, yet the arrangement could restrict the choices of the individuals involved.

A woman living within a royal household might face restrictions on her movement and still exercise political influence, sponsor temples or engage in trade across the Indian Ocean.

These contradictions make the subject especially interesting.

This paper examines polygyny and polyandry in India from ancient literary traditions and inscriptions to the end of British rule in 1947. It asks not only what practices existed, but also why they developed, whom they benefited and what consequences they had.

One distinction is essential at the outset: what a religious or legal text prescribed, what a king did, and how ordinary families lived were not necessarily the same. Our evidence is also unequal. Kings left inscriptions and chronicles; ordinary wives and concubines rarely had the same opportunity to record their own lives.

1. Understanding the terms

Polygamy

The broad term for having more than one spouse at the same time.

Polygyny

One man having two or more wives at the same time.

Polyandry

One woman having two or more husbands at the same time.

Fraternal polyandry

A form of polyandry in which a woman’s husbands are brothers.

Concubinage

A recognised or tolerated relationship with a woman who did not have the same status as a wife. Its meaning varied across societies and periods.

Harem, zenana or antahpura

Terms associated with the inner domestic quarters of elite households. Such households could include relatives, children, attendants and servants as well as wives and concubines.

A person who marries again after a spouse has died has had successive marriages. That is different from having multiple spouses at the same time. This distinction matters when counting the marriages of historical rulers.

2. Why did societies accept multiple marriage?

Marriage in much of premodern India was not viewed only as a relationship between two individuals. It also connected families, property, communities and political interests.

The balance among these purposes varied. A royal marriage could create an alliance. A marriage in an agricultural family could affect land and labour. A family might seek a prestigious son-in-law to protect its social standing. Affection, attraction and personal choice could matter too.

Five recurring causes help us understand the historical evidence.

2.1. The desire for heirs

For kings and property-owning families, the birth of children—especially sons in strongly patrilineal societies—was often considered essential to the continuation of the family line.

If a marriage did not produce a son, a man might take another wife. The concern was not only personal. A ruler without an accepted heir could face uncertainty over who would inherit the throne, command the army and retain the loyalty of nobles.

Dasharatha and the search for sons

In the Ramayana, King Dasharatha has several queens, including Kausalya, Kaikeyi and Sumitra. Despite his marriages, he is concerned that he has no son to succeed him. The narrative describes a sacrifice performed to obtain sons, after which Rama, Bharata, Lakshmana and Shatrughna are born.

The story illustrates the importance attached to male heirs in the epic’s conception of kingship. Later, the question of which queen’s son should inherit the throne becomes central to the narrative.

The Ramayana is a literary and religious epic. It shows how its tradition understood kingship and succession; it does not establish the exact household arrangements of a historical Dasharatha.

The Arthashastra

The Arthashastra discusses circumstances in which a husband seeking a son might take a second wife after waiting for specified periods, depending on whether the first wife had conceived or borne children.

This shows that the desire for a son was recognised in at least one influential textual tradition as a possible ground for another marriage. It does not prove that all men followed the rule or that the text represented the customs of every community.

The effect on women: The emphasis on sons could place considerable pressure on a wife. Childlessness—or the birth of daughters rather than sons—might be treated as her failure, even though the biological causes of infertility can lie with either spouse.

2.2. Political alliances

For ruling families, marriage could be a form of diplomacy. It could turn a neighbouring ruler into a relative and bind families through children, mutual interests and political networks.

A princess entering another court was not simply entering a new household. Her marriage might connect two dynasties and influence the balance of power between them.

Akbar and the Rajput houses

The Mughal emperor Akbar formed matrimonial alliances with Rajput royal families, beginning with the house of Amber. Further marriages connected the Mughal court with other ruling houses, including those of Jaisalmer and Bikaner.

These relationships formed part of a wider political system involving negotiation, service at the imperial court and the incorporation of regional rulers into the Mughal Empire.

One important figure in this history is Maryam-uz-Zamani, Akbar’s wife from the Amber royal family and the mother of Jahangir. Her position linked a Rajput ruling house to the Mughal line of succession.

The alliance did not mean that every Rajput ruler accepted the same relationship with the Mughals, or that marriage eliminated conflict. Nor can we assume that the princess and the two ruling families experienced the arrangement in the same way.

Royal marriages in South India

South Indian dynasties also used marriage to establish relationships with influential families and neighbouring rulers. Chola inscriptions identify several queens of Rajaraja Chola I, showing how a royal household could include women associated with different families.

The precise background and political purpose of each marriage must be established case by case. They should not be inferred merely from a queen’s title.

The effect on the kingdom: A marriage could bring allies and legitimacy. Yet it could also create competing networks around different queens and their children, making succession more complicated.

2.3. Property and household labour

In agricultural societies, a family was often both a social unit and an economic unit. Its members worked the land, managed animals, cared for children and maintained the household.

Marriage therefore affected not only companionship but also how land, labour and resources were organised.

Fraternal polyandry in Jaunsar-Bawar

In Jaunsar-Bawar, in the western Himalayan region, anthropologists documented households in which a woman was married to two or more brothers.

One possible advantage for a landholding family was that the brothers could remain in a single household instead of dividing a small holding among separate families. They could also pool labour and resources.

Research shows that Jaunsar-Bawar contained different family forms, including monogamy and polygyny; polyandry was not followed by every household.

Land and polyandry in Kinnaur

Research in Kinnaur, in the western Himalayas, has also examined the relationship between fraternal polyandry and land ownership. It helps explain how marriage and property arrangements may influence each other.

Much detailed anthropological research on these communities was conducted in the twentieth century, including after 1947. It illuminates the arrangement, but its findings should not automatically be projected unchanged onto every earlier century.

The effect on individuals: Keeping land together could benefit a household, but it did not necessarily mean that every husband or the wife had freely chosen the arrangement. The interests of the family and the wishes of an individual could differ.

2.4. Prestige and social standing

Marriage could be used to display or acquire status.

For a ruler, a large household and marriages into prominent families could signal power and wealth. For other families, securing a high-status groom could be seen as protecting or improving the family’s standing.

But prestige could also create conditions in which the outward recognition of marriage mattered more than the welfare of the wife.

Kulin marriages in nineteenth-century Bengal

Among sections of Kulin society in Bengal, some families placed great importance on marrying their daughters to men of highly regarded status.

The demand for such grooms allowed some Kulin men to enter many marriages. Contemporary reformers reported that some wives remained in their parents’ homes and received little attention or support from their husbands. In certain cases, marriage became a source of financial benefit for the groom rather than the beginning of a shared household.

The reformer Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar criticised this system in his 1871 work against high-caste polygamy. He drew on social evidence as well as arguments from Sanskrit legal traditions. His criticism focused on particular practices; it should not be treated as a description of every marriage in Bengal.

The example reveals a painful contradiction:

A marriage could improve a family’s social standing while leaving the woman herself without companionship or adequate support.

The royal household as a symbol of power

In imperial courts, the ability to maintain a large establishment could also display wealth and rank. But a royal household included relatives, attendants and servants as well as wives and concubines.

A large harem or zenana was therefore not a simple count of a ruler’s wives. It was a domestic institution and an expression of dynastic standing.

2.5. Unequal social power

In many historical communities, men had more legal or social freedom than women to marry again or form additional relationships. Women’s sexuality, property rights and conduct were often more closely regulated.

This inequality helps explain why polygyny was accepted in many settings where polyandry was unusual, contested or prohibited.

The Bengal reform debate

The Kulin marriages challenged by Vidyasagar illustrate the unequal bargaining power of some husbands and wives.

A high-status man could be sought by several families, while a girl’s family might fear social consequences if it failed to arrange a suitable marriage. Some wives could find themselves married in name but dependent on their parents in practice.

Vidyasagar’s campaign drew attention to the gap between the social recognition given to the husband and the insecurity experienced by some of the women.

Wives and enslaved concubines in royal households

Mughal royal households included formally married wives as well as concubines and enslaved women. They did not all have the same status.

A senior queen might possess influence, wealth and powerful relatives. An enslaved woman could be subject to the authority of others and lack the freedom to refuse or leave a relationship. The existence of legal or social recognition for concubinage does not establish meaningful consent.

Draupadi’s exceptional marriage

Draupadi’s marriage to the five Pandavas offers a different perspective. The Mahabharata includes debate about the acceptability of one woman having several husbands, while male characters elsewhere in the epic have multiple wives.

The contrast shows that the two arrangements did not necessarily carry the same moral expectations. It should not, however, be used to claim that the epic expresses one simple or consistent rule about all women and men.

The effect: The central question was not merely how many spouses a person had. It was also who could choose, who could leave, who controlled property and whose interests the law or family protected.

How the causes worked together

A single marriage could involve several motives at once.

A royal marriage might create a political alliance, increase prestige and produce a potential heir. A Himalayan household might combine concern for land with customary expectations about family life. In Bengal, the pursuit of prestige could reinforce unequal bargaining power.

Affection and attraction also mattered. They are often harder to establish from historical sources than public alliances or inheritance arrangements. A marriage’s political usefulness does not prove that the partners felt no affection; equally, later romantic stories do not prove what either partner privately intended.

Cause, Historical or textual example and Principal insight

Desire for heirs

Dasharatha in the Ramayana; rules discussed in the Arthashastra

Succession and the wish for a son could influence marriage decisions.

Political alliances

Akbar’s marriages into Rajput ruling families

Marriage could link dynasties and political networks.

Property and labour

Fraternal polyandry in Jaunsar-Bawar and research on Kinnaur

A joint household could help organise land, labour and inheritance.

Prestige

Kulin polygyny in nineteenth-century Bengal

Social standing could encourage multiple marriages even when wives received little support.

Unequal power

Neglected wives in reform accounts; enslaved women in royal households

The ability to enter, refuse or leave a relationship differed sharply by gender and status.

3. Ancient Indian literature: What stories can tell us

India’s epics contain both polygyny and polyandry. They are invaluable for studying moral imagination and social ideas, but they are not straightforward population records.

Dasharatha: Multiple queens and succession

The story of Dasharatha demonstrates a recurring political difficulty in a royal household with multiple queens: different mothers could have different interests in the future of the kingdom.

Kaikeyi’s demand that Bharata be crowned and Rama be sent into exile shows how a family dispute could become a matter of state.

The characters are more complex than a contest between a “good queen” and a “bad queen.” Kaikeyi’s relationship with Rama, her concern for Bharata and Manthara’s influence all contribute to the conflict.

Draupadi: One woman and five husbands

In the Mahabharata, Draupadi becomes the wife of the five Pandava brothers.

The episode is revealing because the epic itself does not present the arrangement as entirely ordinary. Characters question it, and explanations are offered for why this marriage is acceptable in the circumstances.

Draupadi’s father Drupada expresses concern about one woman having several husbands; Vyasa provides an explanation. The debate suggests that the marriage raised moral questions for the epic’s narrators and audiences.

It is tempting to say that Draupadi’s marriage proves polyandry was once widespread across ancient India. The text does not establish that. It shows that the epic could imagine and discuss such a union; its prevalence in any historical population is a separate question.

Draupadi’s five husbands were brothers, as in some documented forms of Himalayan polyandry. The resemblance is intriguing, but it does not prove that the epic directly records the custom of a particular Himalayan community.

Draupadi is also more than an example of a marriage system. She questions injustice and participates in the epic’s examination of dharma. Her five husbands do not protect her from humiliation in the dice-hall episode—a reminder that the number of husbands tells us little by itself about a woman’s security.

4. Ashoka’s second queen: Evidence from an inscription

The Mauryan emperor Ashoka, who ruled in the third century BCE and is especially associated with Buddhism, provides an example supported by evidence from his own reign.

An inscription known as the Queen’s Edict identifies Karuvaki as Ashoka’s second queen and instructs officials to record charitable gifts as hers. The gifts included a mango grove and other charitable or public facilities.

This short inscription is significant for several reasons:

The title “second queen” suggests a hierarchy within the royal household.
Karuvaki’s donations were important enough to receive formal recognition.
The edict preserves her name and identifies her as a mother.
It shows a royal woman acting as a donor in her own name.

The inscription does not tell us everything we might wish to know. It does not explain Karuvaki’s personal relationship with Ashoka, whether she chose the marriage, or the exact chronology of all his marriages.

That is the historian’s difficulty: a stone inscription can preserve a queen’s public act while leaving her private life almost entirely silent.

5. Chola queens: Marriage, religion and public reputation

The Chola example is particularly valuable because inscriptions connect royal marriage with public patronage.

Records associated with Rajaraja Chola I, who ruled around the turn of the eleventh century, identify several queens, including Lokamahadevi and Cholamahadevi, and describe gifts made to temples. Their donations included images, ornaments and support for worship.

These queens participated in the creation of a public religious world. Their gifts helped:

Support temples and worship.
Display the wealth and piety of the royal household.
Preserve their names in inscriptions.
Connect the dynasty with religious institutions and local society.

A temple inscription could therefore be more than a religious record. It could also be a statement of a queen’s status.

A caution about counting queens

Queens could be known by more than one title or name. Scholars have noted uncertainty about whether some names in Chola inscriptions refer to separate queens or the same person under different titles. Claims about exactly how many wives Rajaraja had should therefore be checked against the inscriptions rather than repeated uncritically.

The evidence of named gifts also raises an interesting question: did royal women use temple patronage to create a public identity distinct from their husbands?

It is a fruitful question, although a recorded donation does not automatically establish that a queen controlled her wealth independently in the modern sense.

6. The Delhi Sultanate and Mughal periods

The arrival of Muslim dynasties did not introduce polygyny into India. The practice existed earlier and continued among rulers and communities of different traditions.

Muslim royal households nevertheless operated within their own legal, cultural and political frameworks.

Islamic principles concerning multiple wives

In classical Islamic law, a Muslim man could marry up to four wives at one time, subject to conditions. The Quran’s verse 4:3 connects multiple marriage with the obligation of justice and says that a man who fears he cannot be just should marry one.

Verse 4:129 acknowledges the difficulty of complete equality in feeling and warns against turning away from one wife entirely. Interpretations of these verses have varied.

Classical Islamic law also recognised sexual relationships involving enslaved women under rules distinct from marriage. Concubinage was not the same as being a wife, and enslaved concubines were not simply additional wives counted under the four-wife rule.

That historical legal recognition must be understood alongside the unequal power involved. An enslaved woman cannot be assumed to have possessed meaningful freedom to consent.

As elsewhere, the rule in a legal text and the actual conduct of rulers were not necessarily identical.

7. What was a harem really?

The word harem often conjures an image of hundreds of women waiting to satisfy a ruler. That picture tells us more about popular fantasy and some colonial representations than it does about the whole institution.

The Mughal imperial household included:

Wives and concubines.
The emperor’s mother and other senior female relatives.
Sisters, daughters and daughters-in-law.
Children.
Attendants, servants and enslaved women.
Personnel responsible for security and administration.

It was therefore a large domestic, dynastic and political institution.

Why sensational numbers mislead

Suppose a source says that a royal household contained several hundred or several thousand women.

That figure may include relatives, servants and attendants. It cannot automatically be translated into “the ruler had that many wives” or “that many sexual partners.”

Even the household total may be difficult to verify. Travellers could exaggerate, estimate, repeat rumours or misunderstand the institution they described.

A careful reader should ask:

Who gave the number?
Did the person have direct access?
Which people were included?
Is the figure supported by other evidence?
Was it written during the ruler’s lifetime or much later?

Correcting the fantasy should not lead us to romanticise palace life. A household could contain women with considerable influence and women with almost none. Slavery, captivity and concubinage involved serious inequalities of power.

8. Royal women: Seclusion did not always mean powerlessness

Maryam-uz-Zamani and the ship Rahimi

Maryam-uz-Zamani’s life challenges the idea that every woman associated with a royal household was economically inactive.

She was associated with maritime trade and the ship Rahimi. In 1613, Portuguese forces seized the Rahimi, a ship connected with her and with travel to the Red Sea. Its capture became politically sensitive in part because she was the mother of the emperor Jahangir.

The episode reveals an unexpected connection:

A marriage alliance between a Mughal emperor and a Rajput house intersected with Indian Ocean commerce, pilgrimage and European maritime power.

Her case should not be used to suggest that all women in a harem enjoyed similar privileges. Her influence depended heavily on her exceptional position in the imperial family.

Nur Jahan

Nur Jahan, wife of Jahangir, became one of the most prominent women in Mughal politics. Her career illustrates how a queen could operate within—and shape—the political system.

Her position also generated controversy. When a ruler’s wife, relatives or supporters influence appointments and succession, rivals may regard the household as a competing centre of power.

Gulbadan Begum

Gulbadan Begum, a daughter of Babur, wrote the Humayun-nama, giving later readers an account of the Mughal family. She also travelled on pilgrimage to Mecca with a group that included other royal women.

Her life complicates a simple picture of royal women as permanently confined and silent. It also reminds us that travel for an elite woman took place with resources and support unavailable to most women.

A royal woman might simultaneously experience restrictions on movement, dependence on dynastic relationships, access to wealth and opportunities for political or religious patronage.

Constraint and influence could coexist.

9. The political danger: Many wives, many potential heirs

A king might seek multiple marriages to strengthen his position. Yet those marriages could create competing branches of the family.

Imagine a ruler with three wives:

One queen belongs to a powerful neighbouring dynasty.
Another has the support of leading nobles.
A third is favoured by the ruler and has a son whom he wishes to promote.

Each son may have relatives and supporters who see his succession as vital to their own future.

The result can be rivalry between half-brothers, competition among queens and their families, factionalism among ministers and uncertainty about inheritance.

Polygyny did not automatically cause civil war. Succession rules, political institutions and individual decisions also mattered. Multiple lines of descent could, however, make an already difficult transition more complicated.

A management parallel

A family business can face a similar problem when ownership, succession and authority are unclear across different branches of a family.

The lesson is not that large families are inherently unstable. It is that:

When power and inheritance depend on personal relationships rather than clear institutions, succession becomes vulnerable to rivalry.

10. Polyandry: Why would brothers share a wife?

The best-known form of polyandry in the Himalayan evidence is fraternal polyandry: a woman is married to two or more brothers.

The land question

Consider a family with a small agricultural holding and three sons.

If each son establishes a separate household and the land is divided into three parts, each holding may be too small to support a family comfortably.

If the brothers remain together in one household, the land may remain intact and their labour can be pooled.

This is one reason researchers have associated polyandry with property and household organisation in some Himalayan settings.

But it is not a complete explanation:

Not all families in such regions practised polyandry.
Household arrangements changed over time.
Access to income outside agriculture could change incentives.
Women and men did not necessarily experience the arrangement in the same way.

Possible household consequence – Possible individual consequence

1. Land might remain together. – A woman could face expectations from several husbands and their relatives.

2. Labour and resources could be pooled. – Individual partners might have limited freedom to choose another arrangement.

3. Separate household expenses might be reduced. – Intimacy, residence and family relationships could be complicated.

4. Succession might be organised around the joint household.- The position of children and fathers depended on local rules.

These are possibilities, not claims about every family. Historical and anthropological accounts must be read closely for the community being studied.

Was polyandry proof of women’s empowerment?

Not necessarily.

A woman having multiple husbands is not the same thing as a woman freely choosing her partners. An arrangement could strengthen a household economically while restricting personal autonomy.

Equally, we should not assume that every woman in such a marriage experienced it in the same way. Women’s own voices are often missing from the historical record.

Was it caused by a shortage of women?

Some older accounts suggested that polyandry developed because there were too few women for men to marry.

That explanation may be relevant in particular places or periods, but it cannot be assumed as a universal cause. Researchers have also examined landholding, inheritance, household labour, migration, employment and kinship customs.

A shortage of women is not established as the single explanation for all Himalayan polyandry.

11. Kerala’s Nair communities: A different pattern

Some older writers called certain Nair marriage and partnership practices in Kerala “polyandry.” The details require care.

Historically, sections of Nair society followed matrilineal descent, under which family membership and inheritance could be traced through the female line. Some women entered recognised relationships often discussed under the term sambandham.

These arrangements were not necessarily identical to a Himalayan household in which brothers and a shared wife lived together.

The relevant questions include:

Where did a woman live?
Did her partner live with her or visit?
Which family held property?
Who recognised and supported the children?
Were relationships simultaneous or successive?
What did local people themselves regard as marriage?

Scholars have debated how best to describe these relationships. The statement “all Nair women had many husbands” would therefore be inaccurate.

Matriliny is not matriarchy

This distinction is especially important:

Matriliny concerns descent and inheritance through the female line.
Matriarchy implies women hold governing authority.
Polyandry concerns a woman having multiple husbands.

A society can have one without necessarily having the others. Even in a matrilineal family, senior men may exercise substantial authority.

12. Kulin polygyny in Bengal: When marriage became a social market

The nineteenth-century Kulin example deserves closer attention because it shows that multiple marriage did not always mean a man maintaining all his wives in one large household.

Among sections of high-status Kulin communities, families placed great importance on marrying daughters into suitably prestigious families. Some men with high ritual status could enter many marriages, while some wives remained in their parental homes and received little attention or support.

A contemporary reform petition described girls who continued to live with their parents after marriage while their nominal husbands paid them little attention.

The social mechanism could work as follows:

A family feared that failing to arrange an acceptable marriage for its daughter would damage its standing.
A high-status groom was considered desirable.
His status allowed him to attract several marriage proposals.
The ceremonies took place.
Some wives remained dependent on their parents rather than receiving the security expected of marriage.

This was not the only form of marriage in Bengal, nor should the worst examples be treated as representative of all Kulin families. But the pattern became significant enough to provoke sustained criticism.

Vidyasagar’s response

Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar argued against Kulin polygyny using Sanskrit learning, historical reasoning and evidence about social conditions.

His work, now available in an annotated English translation as Against High-Caste Polygamy, shows an Indian scholar challenging a practice through the intellectual traditions of his own society.

His campaign did not achieve the legislative prohibition he sought at that time. The debate itself is important: Indian society was not simply passive until outsiders introduced criticism.

13. Were multiple marriages common among ordinary people?

Royal history can give a misleading impression of the wider population.

A king could maintain queens, relatives, servants and dependants on a scale that most families could not afford. Ordinary households faced different economic constraints.

We should avoid two assumptions:

That every Hindu or Muslim man had several wives.
That multiple marriage occurred only among kings.

It also existed outside royalty, as the Bengal example shows. Its prevalence varied by region, community, wealth and period.

Reliable population-wide figures for ancient and medieval India are generally unavailable. Colonial censuses offer more numerical evidence for later periods, but their categories and methods require careful examination. It would be unsafe to quote a single percentage for all of India without specifying the source, date and population.

14. Religion and practice: A fair comparison

Hindu traditions

There was no single unchanging Hindu social practice governing every region and community. Texts, commentaries, caste customs and local institutions differed.

Some textual traditions discussed circumstances in which a man might take another wife, while ideals of marital fidelity and the status of a first wife were also important. Royal conduct could be much more expansive than the life expected of ordinary households.

Islamic traditions

Classical Islamic law permitted a man to have up to four wives at one time, with a condition of justice. Historically, Islamic legal systems also recognised concubinage involving enslaved women under rules distinct from marriage.

These rules mattered, but they did not mean that every Muslim man practised polygyny, or that a ruler’s household can be understood solely by reading a legal text.

Comparing Hindu and Muslim rulers

Hindu and Muslim royal traditions had almost similar practices.

Did rulers have multiple wives?

Yes, documented in court histories and other sources.

Did alliances influence marriage?

Yes, in many dynasties.

Were there women other than wives in royal households?

Yes; they included relatives, attendants, servants, enslaved women and concubines.

Did legal and religious frameworks differ?

Yes; there were multiple textual traditions and local customs. But rules distinct from marriage for enslaved concubines.

Did all ordinary men follow rulers’ examples?

No evidence supports such a claim.

The evidence does not support the claim that one religion alone created polygyny in India. Nor were all legal traditions identical. Shared political practices existed alongside meaningful differences in law and custom.

15. The British period: Law, reform and selective intervention

British colonial authorities encountered many Indian marriage practices. Over time, courts and legislatures increasingly organised family law around categories such as Hindu, Muslim, Christian and Parsi law, while also dealing unevenly with local customs.

The resulting system was not simply an unchanged ancient order. Colonial officials and courts selected texts, relied on interpretations, recognised some customs and rejected others.

Reform was uneven

Several forces operated together:

Indian reformers demanded change.
Religious and community leaders disagreed over interpretations.
Colonial officials worried about interfering in sensitive social matters.
Women’s experiences were debated, but women did not always have equal influence over the debate.
Rules differed between provinces and princely states.

After the revolt of 1857, colonial authorities were often cautious about reforms that might be presented as interference in religion or custom.

Polygyny under Hindu law

For much of the British period, Hindu men were generally able to contract more than one marriage under the law applied to them, although practice and legal rules varied.

In Bombay, the Bombay Prevention of Hindu Bigamous Marriages Act, 1946 marked an important provincial restriction before the end of British rule. It did not amount to a single all-India prohibition in 1946.

For context beyond the endpoint of this paper, a broader statutory rule of monogamy for Hindus came after Independence through the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955.

Muslim personal law

The Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, 1937 provided for Muslim personal law to apply in specified family matters, including marriage, instead of contrary custom in the situations covered by the Act.

It did not create the Islamic rules on multiple marriage, nor did it mean that all Muslim men practised polygyny.

The Dissolution of Muslim Marriages Act, 1939 addressed grounds on which Muslim women could seek dissolution. The history of personal law was therefore also a history of women and reformers seeking remedies.

Other communities

Christian marriage law and certain civil-marriage arrangements operated differently from the personal laws applicable to many Hindu and Muslim marriages. The Parsi Marriage and Divorce Act, 1936 also imposed a monogamous framework for marriages governed by that law.

The transition toward monogamous legislation occurred unevenly and continued after 1947.

Polygamy and communal identity

Research on the colonial period argues that polygamy increasingly came to be discussed as though it were a uniquely Muslim issue, despite the substantial history of Hindu polygyny. A complex social question could thereby become a marker of supposed religious difference.

The reverse error would be to claim that religious law had no effect. It did matter—but it interacted with class, caste, property, region and political power.

16. Effects on women, children and family relationships

What happened to the first wife?

When a man married again, the first wife’s position depended on law, family support, wealth, children and local custom.

She might remain the senior wife and retain considerable authority. Or she might see her influence decline.

In a wealthy household, she might have separate rooms, attendants and resources. In a poorer family, another marriage could place pressure on limited income.

In the Bengal cases criticised by reformers, some women could be nominally married yet remain dependent on their parents.

The issue is therefore not simply whether multiple marriage was permitted. It is also:

What did marriage promise a woman, and what happened when that promise was not fulfilled?

Children’s position

A child’s future could depend on:

Whether the mother was a formally recognised wife.
Her rank within the household.
Her family’s political influence.
The applicable inheritance rules.
The father’s recognition of the child.

For royal children, a mother’s position could affect access to support and succession. Rank was not the only determinant; politics and individual circumstances mattered too.

Inheritance and property

More than one wife could mean more than one group of children claiming property.

Disputes were not inevitable, but unclear rules and competing family interests could make them more likely.

Emotional life

Historical records often discuss marriage as an alliance or legal status. They rarely tell us enough about affection, friendship, jealousy, loneliness or relationships between half-siblings.

Court poetry, memoirs, reform literature and women’s writings can sometimes help, but we should not fill every silence with either romantic happiness or inevitable misery.

17. Seven especially interesting insights

1. The oldest surviving evidence is often not about love

An inscription may record a queen’s donation or title, but say little about her feelings. We often know more about public status than private experience.

2. A large harem was not a list of wives

A royal household could include mothers, sisters, daughters, servants and enslaved women. Counting everyone as a sexual partner produces a false picture.

3. A royal marriage could connect to international trade

Maryam-uz-Zamani’s Rahimi connects a royal marriage, Mughal politics, pilgrimage and Portuguese maritime power.

4. Multiple marriage could both build and weaken a dynasty

Marriage alliances could secure allies, while competing heirs could later divide those allies.

5. Polyandry could be connected with keeping land together

In some Himalayan households, fraternal marriage formed part of a broader arrangement for managing family property and labour.

6. A man could have many wives without housing them together

The Kulin Bengal cases show how some wives lived with their parents while their husbands entered other marriages.

7. The same woman could be constrained and powerful

A queen might live within a restricted household and still shape politics, patronage or commerce. Her influence did not erase the restrictions under which she lived.

Conclusion

The history of polygyny and polyandry in India is not a simple contest between religious communities.

Multiple wives existed before Muslim rule. Muslim rulers maintained complex households governed by their own legal and political traditions. Hindu rulers continued to form multiple marriages. Polyandry appeared in literary narratives and existed in certain documented communities, though in different forms.

Across these differences, one theme appears repeatedly: marriage was connected to the organisation of power.

For rulers, it could secure alliances and heirs.
For families, it could organise land and inheritance.
For communities, it could preserve status and custom.
For individuals, it could offer companionship and security—or produce dependence and exclusion.

The most important voices are often the hardest to find: those of ordinary wives, neglected women, concubines and enslaved people.

A balanced history should therefore ask not only how many spouses a ruler had, but also:

Who had a choice? Who received protection? Who controlled wealth? And whose story was never written down?

Sources and further reading

Ashoka’s Queen’s Edict⁠ — contemporary inscription naming Karuvaki and recording her donations.
South Indian Inscriptions: Rajaraja Chola and his queens⁠ — evidence of Chola queens and their temple gifts.
Women, the Imperial Household, and the State⁠ — scholarship on Mughal women and the political role of the imperial household.
Maryam-uz-Zamani’s ship and Mughal women’s trade⁠ — study of the Rahimi and its capture.
Himalayan polyandry and the domestic cycle⁠ — study of family forms in Jaunsar-Bawar.
Against High-Caste Polygamy⁠ — annotated translation of Vidyasagar’s nineteenth-century critique.
The problem of polygamy in modern India, 1861–1947⁠ — research on colonial debates and religious identity.
The marital patchwork of colonial South Asia⁠ — the diversity of marriage laws and practices in the colonial period.