It was normal for peasant women in 18th- and 19th-century China to have two husbands

And sometimes, three. The little-known prevalence of polyandry comes to light in Matthew Sommer’s fascinating history of peasant family structures, "Polyandry and Wife-Selling in Qing Dynasty China." Since most peasants were illiterate and the Qing elite regarded polyandry as supremely immoral, there are few traces of the practice. Sommer, a Stanford University historian, draws descriptions from court cases.
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