Note 15 — Chapter XXII · MARRIAGE

From any point of view, and certainly from the point of view of the savage, the sexual morality of the Todas among themselves is very low. It is an interesting subject of speculation how far this laxity is the result of the practice of polyandry, for since low sexual morality brings in its train various factors which tend to sterility, we may have here, as Mr. Punnett has suggested elsewhere,15 a reason why polyandry is so rare a form of marriage. The practice of polyandry must almost inevitably weaken the sentiment of possession on the part of the man which does so much to maintain the more ordinary forms of marriage.