The Social Life of the Blackfoot Indians. Clark Wissler

A distinction should be made, however, between the favorite wife and other wives. These others were often captured women from other tribes, violated by a war party before becoming members of a household. Such were often loaned by their masters without exciting public dissent. It may have been such women that came to the notice of Henry and excited his extreme contempt.^[20]

[16]	Grinnell, 211–216; see also McClintock, 185.

[17]	Grinnell, 217.

[18]

“There is no particular marriage ceremony among the Blackfeet; the man pays for the wife, and takes her to him; the purchase-price is announced to the father of the girl by a friend or some other man. If he accepts it, the girl is given up, and the marriage is concluded. If the wife behaves ill, or if her husband is tired of her, he sends her home without any ceremony, which does not give occasion to any dispute. She takes her property and retires: the children remain the property of the husband.” Maximilian, Vol. 23, 110.

[19]	See Maximilian, Vol. 23, 110.

[20]	Henry and Thompson, 526; also Maximilian, Vol. 23, 109.

Plurality of Wives.

       Table of Contents

      There were no restrictions as to the number of women taken to wife, but no woman could have more than one husband. Economic conditions, however, were unfavorable to a household of many wives, so that many men kept but a single wife and very few indeed ventured to support as many as five. On the other hand, a man of importance was expected to have two or more wives, suggesting wealth and resourcefulness. Plural wives speak of themselves as niskas (married to the same man) or, if of considerable difference in age, as elder and younger sisters. In the normal order of events, the first wife is the real, or head wife (she who sits beside him). A man may depose the head wife and confer the right upon another; but such was regarded as unusual, except where the provocation was great. When he went upon a journey, the head wife alone usually accompanied him. In the transfer of medicines, she took the woman’s part and afterwards cared for the bundle. It seems that in this function, at least, she was secure from the whims of her husband. Again, there is the belief that the marriage obligations demanded more of her; the other wives, especially if young, were generally assumed to have lovers among the young men even though such was formally forbidden.

      It is said, that sometimes the intimate friends of a young man about to marry would ask for the loan of his wife after marrying, but that in such cases the wife rarely yielded to his requests as she was always upheld in an appeal to his or her relatives. In the absence of other data, it is not safe to consider this a survival of former practices. However, it should be considered a possible phase of the distant-wife relations.