An academic at Fudan University in Shanghai has suggested that the Chinese government allow women to marry two or three husbands.

In a June 2 column, Professor Yew-Kwang Ng asked, “Is polyandry really a ridiculous idea?”

“I wouldn’t suggest polyandry if the gender ratio was not so severely imbalanced …” he wrote. “I’m not advocating for polyandry, I’m just suggesting that we should consider the option in the face of an imbalanced gender ratio … If two men are willing to marry the same wife and the woman is willing, too, what reason does society have to stop them sharing a wife?”

The professor said there are advantages to monogamy; it is good for children’s well-being.

“But given China’s skewed sex ratio, it’s necessary to consider allowing polyandry legally,” he continued.

Sex-selection abortions accompanied by the country’s oppressive one child policy have led to at least 71 million women being missing from society. Many men cannot find girlfriends and wives because they were aborted as babies; and the country’s population is aging rapidly because children are not being born.