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If Muslim men can have more than one wife, there is also a tribe where the woman is the one with more than one husband.

Polygamy is a common practice by many cultural groups in the different part of the world.

We all know for a fact that Muslim men can marry as many as they can, oops take note, as they “can,” not as they “want,” meaning to say, they can only do if they have the means although other Muslim sects allow four wives only. This is not prohibited as long as all the wives are treated equally and fairly and each wife has a separate room. They call it harem.

On the contrary, do you know that there is a tribe that it’s the women who can have more than one husband? Very unusual isn’t it? Believe it or not but this is true and it is in existence. Who are these people and where can we find them? Let’s find out.

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These people are called the Mustangs and their kingdom is also called Mustang. Mustang is located in the northwest part of Nepal and was closed to foreigners until 1992. The area of Mustang is about 2000 km2 with more or less 7000 inhabitants. Mustang is one of the few places in the Himalayan region that has been able to retain its traditional Tibetan culture unmolested. There are no roads, cars, telephones, televisions or western doctors.

Mustang is an isolated and free Tibetan kingdom whose people still believe that the Earth is flat, that illness is caused by evil spirits and is healed through exorcism. And mustang is the place where women can have more than one husband.

It is a Mustang tradition that if a man wants to marry he has to give the girl’s family a piece of land as a dowry. If another brother wants to marry he should do the same. In order for a family not to lose their domain for marriage purposes, it is a common practice for a brother to marry a brother’s wife. So if there are five brothers in a family the tendency is that they will share a common wife. They do this because of the scarcity of tillable land.

Maybe you will ask, how’s the set up at home? If a Mustang woman has five husbands each husband has a schedule. They can make a schedule of two days and two nights each or one day and one night each.

How would they know who impregnated the wife? There is no possibility for the wife to determine who amongst the husbands impregnated her. I’m sure you would also ask this, who’s going to be considered as the father? Well, it is always the oldest who’s going to be address as the father. All the younger husbands will be called uncle by the kids.

Very unusual but it is true. We are different from one another with different cultural orientation. Let’s just respect each others culture.