It may perhaps be urged that the practice of polyandry prevails among several peoples without any evil results as regards fecundity being heard of. But polyandry scarcely ever implies continued promiscuous intercourse of many men with one woman. In Tibet, for example, where the brothers of a family very often have a common wife, more than one are seldom at home at the same time.[616] Mr. Talboys Wheeler has even suggested that polyandry arose among a pastoral people, whose men were away from their families for months at a time, so that the duty of protecting these families would naturally be undertaken by the brothers in turn.[617] Again, among the Kaniagmuts, the second husband was only a deputy who acted as husband and master of the house during the absence of the true lord;[618] and the same was the case in Nukahiva.[619] But especially remarkable is the following practice connected with polyandry. In the description given by Bontier and Le Verrier of the conquest and conversion of the Canarians in 1402 by Jean de Bethencourt we read that, in the island of Lancerote, most of the women have three husbands, “who wait upon them alternately by months; the husband that is to live with the wife the following month waits upon her and upon her other husband the whole of the month that the latter has her, and so each takes her in turn.”[620] Mr. Harkness tells us about a Toda who, having referred to his betrothal to his wife Pilluvāni and the subsequent betrothal of the latter to two others, Khakhood and Tūmbut, said, “Now, according to our customs, Pilluvāni was to pass the first month with me, the second with Khakhood, and the third with Tūmbut.”[621] Among the Kulus, in the Himalaya Mountains, when parents sell a daughter to several brothers, she belongs during the first month to the eldest brother, during the second to the next eldest, and so on;[622] whilst, as regards the Nairs, whose women, except those of the first quality, may marry twelve husbands if they pleased. Hamilton states that “all the husbands agree very well, for they cohabit with her in their turns, according to their priority of marriage, ten days, more or less, according as they can fix a term among themselves.”[623] * * * * *