Comanche suitor must buy his bride of her parents; but unless she manifests her willingness by leading his pony into the stall, the bargain is void.[692] A similar freedom in choosing her mate is asserted by the woman of the Pueblos, Creeks, Chippewas, and various other tribes;[693] while the existence of real affection and true courtship is shown by the fact that suicide sometimes happens on account of disappointed love.[694] [685] On the place of the wooer in wife-purchase see LEIST, _Alt-arisches Jus Gentium_, 130 ff. What Spencer says of marriage by service is true in a high degree of marriage by purchase in general: SPENCER, _op. cit._, I, 754, 755. [686] On the radical difference between elopement and capture see FISON AND HOWITT, _Kamilaroi and Kurnai_, 354, 343, 348-51; and compare PLOSS, _Das Weib_, I, 53, 54; WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 223. [687] DARWIN, _op. cit._, chap. xx, 597, 598. Among the Point Barrow Eskimo marriages are formed for "reasons of interest." Sometimes a wife is taken against her will. Yet "women appear to stand on a footing of perfect equality with the men both in the family and in the community." The "wife is the constant and trusted companion of the man in everything except the hunt, and her opinion is sought in every bargain or other important undertaking."--MURDOCH, in _IX. Rep. of Bureau of Eth._, 410, 413, 414. _Cf._ EGEDE, _Greenland_, 144. [688] WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 216, 9. CAPTAIN MUSTERS, _At Home with the Patagonians_ (1872), affirms that the finest trait of the Patagonian "Tehuelches character is 'their love for their wives and children; matrimonial disputes are rare, and wife-beating unknown; and the intense grief with which the loss of a wife is mourned is certainly not 'civilized,' for the widower will destroy all his stock and burn all his possessions,' and possibly become careless of his life." A similar affection is shown among the Eskimo, who are also polygynous: WAKE, _Marriage and Kinship_, 184, 185. Free courtship exists among the Omahas: DORSEY, "Omaha Sociology," _III. Rep. of Bureau of Eth._, 259, 260; and in general there is sometimes individual choice among the Siouan peoples: _idem_, "Siouan Sociology," _ibid._, XV, 178. [689] DOBRIZHOFFER, _Account_, II, 207; _cf._ DARWIN, _op. cit._, chap. xx, 598; and PLOSS, _Das Weib_, I, 53, 54; KLEMM, _Kulturgeschichte_, II, 75. [690] DARWIN, _op. cit._, chap. xx, 598; WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 216. [691] WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 216, and authorities there cited. [692] PLOSS, _op. cit._, I, 53.