Dear Banjo,

Typically in Tibet where they have or did have polyandry a woman will marry brothers and be wife to all of them. This is different from polygyny where I think wives are taken one at a time. I suspect that the ceremony of marriage to a group of brothers would involve all of them in the same ceremony.

David, was that situation in Tibet caused by the drain of males into the Buddhist priesthood and the need to remain celibate?

Another argument against those religious orders who make silly rules to coerce people into 'correct behaviour'.

Dear Blue Cross, I think it was a practical arrangement. Tibet did not have the wherewithal to stand a great population increase. Some women would have several husbands and others would not have any. Buddhist monks are different from Christian monks. Buddhist monks and nuns may take holy orders for a stated term rather than life.

Marriage in natural biological act between a man and a woman celebrated by supporting friends in a ceremony. In ancient religions the actual initial sex act was precided over by priests in an enclosed area with attendants to ensure the marriage was culminated. They would display the blood on the sheets to indicate the bride was a virgin. The guests did not witness the union but were there to celebrate the marriage union. When this happened the society recognised them as husband and wife. The giving of a ring for the finger circumvents that intimate ceremony today.

Dear Philo,

Your repetition has a robotic quality.

Maybe Philo is a robot...and his program seems to have provided him with the erroneous information that the "social institution or ceremony" of marriage is somehow a biological act.

Sex is a biological act. Social mechanisms are "not" biological acts.