Radio and television mirror (May-Oct 1940)

worn By HARRISON FORMAN Editor's Note: Like sound radio, television is bringing to its audience fascinating and unusual information. A unique televised feature is NBC's Explorer's Bureau, which presents famous travelers and adventurers telling about the things they have seen. The following article is a digest of a talk given on this program by Harrison Forman, considered the world's outstanding authority on Tibet. We bring it to you here because it paints an amazing picture of a strange land where women lead lives radically different from the ones we are accustomed to. SUPPOSE your husband was away on a business trip. Then suppose, further, that he wrote you a letter and said he was doing very well and that the woman he had married temporarily was a great help and a great comfort and that he would be home in a couple of months. What would you do? I suspect you'd take the first train to Reno. Suppose, on the other hand, that at the time you married this absent husband you automatically became the wife of all his younger brothers. And then suppose, that according to law, your wifely privileges in relation to these brothers depended entirely on your own wishes. Would you still go to Reno? In America, neither one of these problems is ever likely to come up. But in Tibet, such situations are common occurrences and to the Tibetan women they are not strange or wrong. Tibetan women enjoy a liberty and place in society unlike that of any other group of women in the world. They are not looked down upon like women in most Oriental countries. As a matter of fact, they are considered equal to men in most respects and in some instances their rights even come before those of their husbands. And yet, strangely enough, in this civilization in which the community and family life is built around the women and children, not the men, the women have very little to say in the government and are almost completely barred from the sphere of religion. To understand this strange mixture of freedom and restriction, you have to know a little about Tibet. Tibet is primarily a trading country. Its men are frequently forced to make long, slow journeys, either on horseback or yak, to the border markets to trade their wool, furs, musk and gold for the necessities which their plateau doesn't produce. If it were not for the practical marriage laws, the women and children would be left unprotected during the long absences of the men. So, you will find Monogamy — one husband and one wife; Polygamy — one husband with several wives, Polyandry — one wife with several husbands. Group Unions — two or three wives with two or three hus 58 Copyrighted by Harrison Forman A Tibetan maiden, dressed in all her finery — the silver and gold charm boxes are supposed to ward off evil. bands living together in a sort of communal marriage, and Temporary Unions — marriages contracted for short, stated periods, all being practiced in the most friendly fashion, side by side. And there is no sexual looseness or immorality in this. The Tibetans are strictly moral and abide rigidly by the code of behavior they have set themselves. Where Polyandry exists in Tibet — that is, where one woman has several husbands — the husbands are usually brothers, so the wife is "kept in the family." In these cases, when a man marries, the woman automatically becomes the wife of each of his younger brothers. She may, however, accept or reject at will the husbandly advances of the younger brothers. They, on the other hand, have no will in the matter, at all. The woman may N TIBET The wonders of television bring you an amazing picture of a strange land legitimately demand that they become husbands in fact — if, as, and when she so desires. Of course, as such a family prospers and grows, the younger brothers get married, too, and the family finds itself rather automatically falling into a Group Union, in which all the husbands and wives are shared cooperatively. Married men who go oflE on long journeys may engage in temporary unions and such unions are not considered illegal or immoral. The offspring of such a union — if there are any — are not considered illegitimate, for the simple reason that there is no such thing as illegitimacy in Tibet. Children are looked on as the common property of the family and the community. Children are always identified as of this or that woman. The father is ignored. The only sphere from which women are barred is religion. In the Buddhist concept, woman is spiritually inferior. She cannot worship inside the temples. She cannot enter the monasteries except when certain rituals are being performed. In the matter of dress, Tibetan women are less fortunate than their sisters in the rest of the world. For, winter and summer, year in and year out, Tibetan women wear the same main garment, which becomes a sleeping bag at night merely by the loosening of the girdle at the waist. This robe is made of butter-tanned sheepskins, with perhaps a bit of leopard at the collar and around the hem for trimming. THE women wear their hair in 108 braids, one braid for each volume of the Kan-Djur, the Tibetan Holy Book. And then the ornamentation begins. To the ends of these braids they attach a heavy cloth which reaches to their heels and is liberally studded with designs worked in silver, gold, amber and turquoise. The designs on these back pieces vary according to the tribe to which the woman belongs. This headdress is pretty heavy and, needless to say, pretty permanent, being dressed with lengths of yak hair to even up the short ends every few months. Since Tibet is rich in gold and silver and semi-precious stones, the women can indulge their love for jewelry to the fullest extent. They all wear silver or gold charm boxes around their necks. The outsides of these charm boxes are delicately and intricately designed and inside them are little images fashioned of clay or silver, and often of gold. The Tibetans have many problems to face, problems presented by the cruel, hard nature of their location and climate, and they have solved them as simply and directly as possible. This, it seems to me, is an example that many Western civilizations could follow to the benefit of their peoples. RADIO AND TELEVISION MIRROH