A History of Matrimonial Institutions, Vol. 1 of 3Howard, George Elliott
History
A History of Matrimonial Institutions, Vol. 1 of 3
Howard, George Elliott
Families; Marriage -- History
[442] DORSEY, "Siouan Sociology," _ibid._, 225. Among
the Siouan Omahas, "when a man wishes to take a second wife he
always consults his first wife, reasoning thus with her: 'I
wish you to have less work to do, so I think of taking your
sister, your aunt, or your brother's daughter for my wife. You
can then have her to aid you with your work.' Should the first
wife refuse, the man cannot marry the other woman. Generally no
objection is offered, especially if the second woman be one of
the kindred of the first wife. Sometimes the first wife will
make the proposition to her husband.... The first wife is never
deposed."--_Idem_, "Omaha Sociology," _III. Rep. of Bureau of
Eth._, 261.
[443] SOUZA, "Tratado Descriptivo do Brazil," _Revist.
Inst. Hist._, XIV (1851), 311 ff. Compare MARTIUS,
_Ethnographie_, 104-06, 108, 109, notes; _idem_,
_Rechtszustande_, 53, 54, 57, 58.
[444] On these modifications see SPENCER, _Principles
of Sociology_, I, 694-96; WAKE, _Marriage and Kinship_,
196, 197, 186 ff., 210. "The phases of this custom [wives of
different grades] may be practically divided into (_a_) those
in which all a man's wives have equal rights, (_b_) and those
where there is a superior wife (or wives) and inferior ones, the
latter being sometimes legal wives, and at others slave wives
or concubines."--WAKE, 197. "The Siamese occupy the
almost unique position of having four classes of wives, of which,
however, the slave wife answers to the concubines of other forms
of polygyny."--_Ibid._, 197. _Cf._ further, GROSSE,
_Die Formen der Familie_, 109; WAITZ, _Anthropologie_,
III, 328; HELLWALD, _Die mensch. Familie_, 368, 382
(China), 414; AVERY, "The Indo-Pacific Oceans," _Am.
Antiquarian_, VI, 366.
[445] "I have known many who kept the same wife all their
lives. But if any Abipon marries several women, he settles them
in separate hordes, many leagues distant from one another,
and visits first one, then the other, at intervals of a
year."--DOBRIZHOFFER, _Account_, II, 210.
[446] WESTERMARCK, _Human Marriage_, 442-50; _cf._
STARCKE, _Primitive Family_, 261, 262.
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