The children springing from these unions give the name of father sometimes to the eldest of the husbands, and sometimes to all.[187] Travellers tell us that these polyandrous households are not more troubled than our monogamous ones. Some Thibetans, living thus in conjugal association, could not understand V. Jacquemont when he asked them if the preference of their single wife for one or other of them did not cause quarrels between the husbands. But if jealousy is unknown to the husbands, it is, on the contrary, frequent with the wife. “A Thibetan woman,” says Turner, “united to several husbands, is as jealous of her conjugal rights as an Indian despot could be of the beauties who people his zenana or harem.”[188] As to the manner in which the intimate relations between husbands and wife are regulated in the polyandric households of Thibet, we have scarcely any information. Among the Todas the wife never had conjugal commerce with more than one husband at a time, but she changed every month; sometimes also the associated husbands add to their number temporarily some young man belonging to the tribe, but not yet engaged in the bonds of wedlock.[189] There is another form of polyandry besides the fraternal, but quite as curious, and which has been made to play a great _rôle_ in various sociological theories. It is the polyandry of the Naïrs, an indigenous high caste of Malabar. However extraordinary the fraternal polyandry called Thibetan may seem in our eyes, that of the Naïrs of Malabar is far more so. Here the reality exceeds all that we could have imagined in the way of conjugal customs. The Naïr parents married their daughters early. The bride was rarely more than twelve years old. The proceedings began with an ephemeral union, a sort of fictitious marriage, but celebrated nevertheless with great rejoicings in presence of parents and friends. The initiative and provisional husband passed round the neck of the bride the conjugal collar, the _tali_, and henceforth the marriage was concluded and had to be consummated; only at the end of four or five days the new husband was obliged to quit the house of the wife for ever. On the contrary, the young bride remained in the family, and from this period contracted a series of partial but durable marriages. The first marriage of the young Naïr girl had evidently no other object than defloration; it was a service demanded of a fictitious husband, and for which he was often paid. A traveller relates that for this preliminary marriage a porter or a workman was employed and paid. If his pretensions were too high, recourse was had to an Arab or a stranger; and, says the narrator, the gratuitous services of these last were always preferred if, when the ceremony was over, they withdrew in time and with good grace. When once well and duly prepared for marriage, the young Naïr girl might take for husband whomsoever she liked, except the provisional husband of the first few days.[190]