On a sun-drenched July afternoon, the beat of marriage ceremony drums echoed throughout the hills of Shillai, a distant Himalayan village within the Trans-Giri belt of Himachal Pradesh’s Sirmaur district. As villagers danced the pahari nati and showered flower petals, the bride, Sunita Chauhan, participated within the conventional marriage ceremony rituals. However what set the marriage aside was the presence of not one, however two grooms.
The marriage, which has since gone viral and sparked curiosity and debate past the state borders, is neither scandalous nor new to the area. It’s a remnant of the fading historic apply identified colloquially as Jodidara or Jajda, a type of polyandry by which one girl marries brothers. Although the custom now survives discreetly amongst members of the Hatti group, the customized was widespread throughout the rugged, agrarian area till a couple of many years in the past.
“Twenty-five years in the past, it was commonplace,” says Harshwardhan Chauhan, Himachal Pradesh’s Industries, Labour, and Parliamentary Affairs Minister and the MLA for Shillai. “However previously decade, I’d estimate fewer than 50 such weddings have taken place.”
For outsiders, such marriages might evoke a way of otherness and lift questions on gender, autonomy, and modernity. However in Shillai (Sirmour) and different tribal areas of Himachal Pradesh, together with Kinnaur and Lahaul-Spiti, polyandry is tied to land, legacy, and survival.
The Hatti group — which obtained its title as they historically bought agrarian items in marketplaces referred to as hatts — spans about 450 villages throughout the Trans-Giri area of Himachal Pradesh and bordering areas of Uttarakhand. These tightly-knit agricultural communities as soon as relied on collective labour to make ends meet.
For hundreds of years, the area’s geography, steep slopes, fragmented terraced fields, and sparse infrastructure dictated a form of financial and familial pragmatism. On this context, polyandry served a particular and purposeful objective: preserving undivided ancestral land and fostering cooperation in joint households.
Sitaram Sharma, chairperson of a public college in Shillai, remembers rising up in a joint family the place his father and grandfather practiced Jajda. “Solely about 5 p.c of households nonetheless observe it,” he says. “Up till round 50 years, each polyandry and polygamy had been practiced locally. Households had no land, there have been no jobs, and survival trusted staying collectively.”
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Households typically had solely a bigha or two of cultivable land — barely sufficient for one family, not to mention many. To divide it additional, Sharma says, would have been catastrophic. “If 4 brothers married 4 wives, their youngsters would break up the land time and again. Jajda ensured land stayed entire, and households stayed collectively.”
His reflections are echoed by the primary chief minister of Himachal Pradesh YS Parmar, who, in his 1975 ethnographic examine Polyandry within the Himalayas, wrote, “The actual motive for the existence of polyandry is financial. It’s the finest system suited to the circumstances of the individuals the place division of land isn’t doable and joint cultivation is advantageous.”
Past economics, the apply wove an emotional lattice amongst siblings. “Fraternal polyandry binds brothers collectively. It discourages fission within the family and promotes unity, for the reason that brothers have a typical spouse, widespread youngsters, and shared obligations,” says Sharma.
It was additionally, in some ways, a type of inhabitants management. “It regulated copy naturally. By limiting the variety of wives in a household, it additionally restricted the variety of youngsters, thereby conserving assets,” Parmar added.
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Mythology and modernity
For a lot of locals, particularly among the many older era, the apply is sanctified by non secular mythology. Within the Mahabharata, Draupadi — spouse to the Pandavas — is taken into account the primary Jajda bride. “Folks say, if such nice males might reside like this, why not us?” says Sharma.
Parmar writes of it too: “The customized has its sanction in mythology and legend. The individuals of the area proceed to observe the instance of those legendary heroes.”
However at the moment, such explanations are met with discomfort, or outright silence. A 2025 examine by sociologists Shiv Kumar and Thakur Prem Kumar, revealed within the peer-reviewed Journal of Neonatal Surgical procedure, attributes the decline to training and employment. “Children are hesitant,” Sharma says. “They work in cities, some go overseas. They’re fearful of being mocked.”
“Earlier, individuals had no selection. Now individuals are stepping out, getting educated, watching the world by screens and books. The joint household is giving approach to nuclear,” he provides.
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Nevertheless, Shravan Kumar, 42, an assistant professor from Lahaul-Spiti, argues that such marriages are neither regressive or coercive. “{Couples} in these relationships should not compelled into something,” he says. “They reside lives with excellent autonomy, not in contrast to conventional two-partner marriages. If the three companions don’t get alongside, the bride or one, or each, of the grooms can provoke divorce by a easy ceremony that interprets to ‘breaking the thread.’”
Customary kinship throughout the Himalayas
Although more and more uncommon, polyandry stays prevalent throughout a number of Himalayan communities, together with sure high-altitude pockets of Nepal and Tibet. Palki Tsering, a 37-year-old researcher from Kinnaur and normal secretary of the Kinnaur Lahaul-Spiti Boudh Sewa Sangh, a neighborhood organisation centered on the welfare of the Buddhist group within the Kinnaur and Lahaul-Spiti areas, notes, “Each polygamy and polyandry are certainly practiced among the many Hatti group and in tribal areas of Kinnaur and Lahaul-Spiti. Although the apply has declined over time, it now tends to be extra consent-based fairly than organized.”
Bride Sunita Chauhan with grooms Pradeep and Kapil Negi(PTI)
Living proof: Sunita Chauhan, the bride, was quoted by information stories as saying: “I used to be conscious of the custom and made my resolution with none strain. I respect the bond we’ve fashioned.”
In her case, one husband, Pradeep from Shillai village, works in a authorities division, whereas the opposite, Kapil, is employed overseas. Tsering says the custom initially served a sensible objective: “Within the rugged terrains of Kinnaur and Lahaul-Spiti, consolidating property and land was important. One son would sometimes work outdoors the village to earn a residing, whereas the opposite stayed again to handle the family and group affairs.”
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Even at the moment, the financial rationale persists. Sustaining a number of households is financially burdensome, particularly with the added value of elevating youngsters. As Tsering explains, “If brothers marry completely different girls, they’re handled as separate households and should every contribute individually to the village group. A family of three brothers with one spouse is taken into account one family and can thus solely contribute as soon as.”
Sushil Brongpa of Lahaul-Spiti, former Rajya Sabha MP, recollects encountering a examine on his household at Patiala College in 1971. The e-book, A Examine of Polyandry by Prince Peter of Greece and Denmark, was revealed by Cambridge College Press. Brongpa shared, “My uncle and father had a typical spouse, and I, too, share a spouse with my uncle’s son. The system ensured that each land and the household stayed collectively.”
Marriage ceremony rituals in these areas additionally diverge notably from typical North Indian customs. Quite than a groom arriving with a baraat, your entire village typically visits the grooms’ home. The ceremony contains choices of jaggery and invocation of the Kul Devta (household deity). A ritual referred to as Seenj is carried out on the groom’s residence.
Brongpa recollects easier types of marriage in earlier occasions: “With restricted assets, ‘gandharv’ weddings — unions with out elaborate rituals — had been widespread. Typically, the elder brother and his associates would merely convey the bride dwelling. In some circumstances, a bottle of liquor sufficed as a symbolic shagun, or a small advance could be given as a token for the girl’s safety.”
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Legality of polyandry
Beneath Indian legislation, polyandry isn’t legally recognised. The Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 and the Particular Marriage Act require monogamy, that’s, neither get together might have a residing partner on the time of marriage. Part 82 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) criminalises bigamy with as much as seven years’ imprisonment. If the prior marriage was hid from the brand new partner, the imprisonment can prolong to 10 years.
Nevertheless, these legal guidelines don’t mechanically apply to members of Scheduled Tribes (STs) except prolonged by the central authorities. This authorized loophole permits for customary practices, like Jodidara, to outlive in tribal areas. Beneath Part 13 of the Indian Proof Act, 1872, a longstanding customized might be admitted in court docket as a authorized proper. Courts have repeatedly upheld this precept, particularly when it considerations household legislation in tribal communities.
The Hatti group in Sirmaur shares deep-rooted kinship ties and cultural practices with Jaunsar-Bawar — an space that was traditionally a part of the princely state of Sirmaur earlier than its incorporation into modern-day Uttarakhand. As we speak, the Tons River serves as each a geographic and coverage boundary: whereas the Jaunsari Hatti on the Uttarakhand aspect are recognised as a Scheduled Tribe, their counterparts in Himachal proceed to await comparable protections. Although Parliament handed a invoice to grant them ST standing in 2022, the Himachal Pradesh Excessive Court docket stayed its implementation in January 2024, citing “manifest arbitrariness” within the classification course of. The case is presently sub judice.
Each Harshwardhan and former Deputy Advocate Normal Himachal Pradesh Chander Mohan Thakur be aware that regardless of lack of formal recognition to the Hatti group in Himachal Pradesh a number of court docket circumstances involving the Hatti group in Himachal have been settled underneath customary legislation, particularly the Jodidara system.
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Thakur cites the Lokur Committee Report (1965), in response to which the primary official standards for figuring out a Scheduled Tribe was: “primitive traits, distinctive tradition, geographical isolation, shyness of contact, and backwardness.”
“Any customized that contradicts public coverage might be struck down. However in terms of tribal communities, their customized prevails over normal legislation,” says Thakur.
MLA Harshwardhan agrees: “There are a number of tribal traits within the Trans-Giri area, and that features polyandry. Customary legislation takes priority in such circumstances. A number of disputes have been resolved underneath these customs.”
Income officers, too, typically encounter the system in land information. “When a brand new official is available in,” Sharma says, “we’ve to clarify how Jodidara works — one spouse, at the least two fraternal husbands, one family.”