I think you all know about Mahabharata where all the five Pandavas married one woman, Draupadi. Do you believe that this practice is still being continued in this modern era? Yes, it’s being followed. It is most commonly found near the Himalayas in the north of the country, as well as in the mountainous nation of Tibet.

Rajo Verma, 21, spoke about this tradition who married five men. This is called Polyandrous Marriage. All the five men are brothers. She lives in one room with the siblings and they sleep on blankets on the floor. She has a child but she doesn’t know which of her 5 husbands the father of her son is.

Her first husband was Guddu, the eldest of all brothers whom she married four years back. After that, she has married to all the other brothers Baiju (32), Sant Ram (28), Gopal (26), and Dinesh (19) according to the tradition. It is a tradition in the small village near Dehradun, Northern India, for women to also marry the brothers of their first husband.

“We all have sex with her but I’m not jealous. We’re one big happy family,” said first husband Guddu who remains the only official spouse.

Rajo Verma said ‘Initially it felt a bit awkward. But I don’t favour one over the other.’

Rajo said she knew she was expected to accept all of her husbands, as her own mother had also been married to three brothers. She said they sleep together in turn, but that they do not have beds, just ‘lots of blankets on the floor’. She added: ‘I get a lot more attention and love than most wives.’

The ancient Hindu tradition of polyandry was once widely practiced in India but is now only observed by a minority. The practice is also believed to be a way of keeping farming land in the family.

This system of polyandry is based on practicality, not necessarily ‘love’ in a Western sensibility. The primary reasons polyandry remains popular in the Himalayan region are the economic benefits as well as population control.