It may be that one of the causes for the lost influence of women among the Indian tribes was the lowering of the standard of morality. This is a matter upon which it is difficult to pronounce, since morality, always comparative in its standards and to be judged only by the racial creeds which govern it in local applications, was peculiarly variant among the Indian tribes of North America. Judged by the rules of modern civilization, it might be broadly stated that morality was always at a very low ebb among the Amerinds; but such a statement would be entirely unwarranted by the true laws of morality. Polygamy, for example, is by modern white races held to be immoral; but it was a very common custom among the Amerinds, and that which is sanctioned by custom is assuredly not immoral, though it may be counted _un_-moral. Again, as already noted, there were tribes among which the exchange of wives, temporarily or permanently, was held to be entirely legitimate; and, while such a custom is very far from being in accord with Caucasian standards, it is the custom only, and not the practisers thereof, which is to be blamed by the just moralist. On the other hand, it may be set down as a rule of Indian social life that adultery was severely punished. Even here the point of view was not invariable, some tribes holding the man the more guilty, while others visited punishment chiefly or entirely upon the woman; but the sentiment concerning the crime in the abstract was almost universal. It is very probable--though no authority can be found for the statement--that it was among those tribes where the descent was in the male line that the woman was held chiefly criminal in adultery, since thus the purity of descent was contaminated and diverted, while among those nations where descent was in the female line, the woman was held less guilty than he who shared her crime. However this may be, and there is too much confusion of statement, as well as too many diverse laws, for us safely to generalize in the matter, certain it is that adultery was in general looked upon as a heinous crime, usually to be visited with death as its penalty. Yet, with all this strictness regarding the sanctity of the marriage tie, where not abrogated by consent, there was among many of the tribes of the West a singular lack of respect for female purity in general. In more than one tribe, the unmarried women were practically held in common by the unmarried men, though immediately upon marriage the former became strangers to all but their husbands. Here are contradictions in theory as well as practice, but such contradictions are invariably to be found among primitive peoples, nor can the highest civilization yet known boast entire freedom from them.