Caesar, Strabo and Cassius Dio on polyandry and shared wives in the British Isles

"In Brittany many men sleep with a single wife, and many wives lust after a single man," reports a Russian chronicler.

This is not the only mention of polygyny and polyandry in the British Isles. Already in Julius Caesar's "Commentaries on the Gallic War" there is an account containing details to the effect that "[in Britain] groups of ten or twelve men have wives in common, and particularly brothers with brothers, and parents with their children."

A similar report is found in Strabo, but concerning the Irish. Later, Cassius Dio wrote the same of the Caledonians.

Hume directly calls the marriage rite of the ancient Britons strange and found among no other peoples. Engels points out that this form of marriage, in which the guests of a house may lay claim to intimacy with the wife of its master, is explained by the existence of group marriage among the Britons.

But in general the custom of offering one's wives to friends is described by authors as a living one up to the fifteenth century, and not only in the British Isles but also in Flanders, and very nearly as far as Germany.