Page:The evolution of marriage and of the family ... (IA evolutionofmarri00letorich).pdf/149

 and on this point the women of the Redskins of North America think and feel like the Guarani women of Brazil. Thus, with the Omahas, the man hardly ever takes a second wife but with the consent of the first. Often the initiative even comes from her; she goes to find her husband, and says to him, "Marry the daughter of my brother. She and I are of the same flesh." It must be admitted that America is the promised land of the matriarchate, or rather, of maternal filiation; polygamy easily takes an incestuous colour there; the wives of the same man are often relatives, habitually sisters. In about forty of the Redskin tribes, and surely they are not the only ones, when a man marries the eldest daughter of a family, he acquires, by express privilege, the right of taking afterwards for wives all the sisters of the first as soon as they become marriageable. This was the custom of the Omahas, the Cheyennes, the Crees, the Osages, the Black-feet, the Crows, the Spokans of Columbia, the Chawanons of Louisiana, etc.

The custom was not, however, obligatory. The wives were not necessarily relatives, or, at least, not necessarily sisters. Thus, with the Omahas, a man sometimes took as wives an aunt and a niece of his first wife. Among the Californians a man sometimes married not only a group of sisters, but also their mother, and in this respect the Greenlanders imitated their hereditary enemies, the Redskins. But, consanguine or not, polygamy was general among the savage tribes of North America. The possession of a numerous flock of wives placed a man above the common as surely as that of a large fortune does in Europe; religion even sanctified this polygamy, for in all countries it can accommodate itself to the dominant morals. Thus, the Chippeways believe that polygamy is agreeable to the Great Spirit; for it is a means of having a numerous posterity.