This startling questions just came to mind, reading this GlobalPost article When two husbands are better than one.

In China the gender imbalance of boys to girls is 120 to 100, resulting from the country’s one-child policy and a preference for boys. In India, where an estimated 10 million females have been aborted or killed after birth, there were 80 girls for every 100 boys in the 2001 census.

If girls were pawns previously in developing countries, this problem will only increase now that they are scarse and desireable as wives, workers and future mothers.

In the Himalayas, there’s an existing tradition of polyandry, with roots that run deeply in Buddhist and Hindu cultures. Although polyandry is illegal in the region, it exists in Himachal, Pradesh, a week’s journey from the China border.

Interviewed by the GlobalPost, Baldev Nath said that “everyone is pleased” with their shared-spouse arrangement, including his older brother and their common wife, 55-year-old Dalma Tashi, although he did not allow her to participate in the interview.

“There are three causes of disputes between brothers: zar, zorou and zamin (gold, women and land),” Nath said. “If there is a common zorou, there is no dispute.”

Just how will the gender imbalance play out in future Chinese and Indian families? I don’t personally know, but it seems not to bode well for women.

Tulsi Patel, a professor in Delhi School of Economics University’s sociology department, reports in her book “Sex Selective Abortion in India” that recently in Gurat, many disturbing reports of new polyandry are emerging. This includes at least one women married to five men.

In other cases, men are leaving their localities to find brides.

Ranjana Kumari, director of the Center for Social Research, a New Delhi-based NGO dedicated to empowering women and making them more self-reliant and conscious of their rights says: “(Young men) are not able to find brides, so they are going outside the state and establishing relationships with people of totally different cultures. One girl committed suicide because she was feeling very harassed because she didn’t understand the language or the culture, and the food was different. It’s not easy for a Karala girl to come to Haryana.”