It is not unheard of for men to have more than one wife at the same time with many cultural practices and religions of the world even supporting the habit.
However, it comes across as unusual to hear of a woman with multiple husbands. Polyandry is a form of polygamy in which a woman takes two or more husbands at the same time, but still, it is a reality that has come to stay in many cultures even in Nigeria.
For example, fraternal polyandry is practised among Tibetans in Nepal, parts of China and part of northern India, in which two or more brothers are married to the same wife, with the wife having equal “sexual access” to them.
Nigeria
Although largely uncommon in Nigeria, is real, there are tribes in Nigeria that also allows polyandry. Among the Irigwe of Northern Nigeria, women have traditionally acquired numerous spouses called “co-husbands”.
The Irigwe people of Nigeria practised a woman having co-husbands until their council voted to outlaw it in 1968. Until then, women moved from house to house, taking on multiple spouses, and the children’s paternity was assigned to the husband whose house the woman lived in at the time.
In Igbo land somewhere in the old Imo state which comprises Imo and Abia, during 1930- early 1960 before the war, a particular town was said to have a law that allows a woman to marry different men at the same time, apart from the culture that allows women to marry follow women in Igboland that is still in existence till date.
India
Kenya
China
South America
Polyandry also existed among tribes in South America as the Bororo practised polyandry while up to 70 percent of Amazonian cultures may have believed in the principle of multiple paternity. “The Tupi-Kawahib also practice fraternal polyandry.