two spouses discussed the
matter in all its phases earnestly together, as chummy as two
school-girls.

The Oo-vai-oo-ak family was a puzzle to the on-lookers, who sought in
vain for some one of the three contracting parties to pity. They were
all so abundantly happy, each in his or her own way, that Walking
Delegate could find no crack here for the opening wedge of discord. If
no one is to be pitied, then surely for this new departure in matrimony
there must be some one for the virtuous to blame. But why?

Kipling declares, "There's never a law of God or man runs north of
fifty-three." The Eskimo has worked out his life-problem independent
quite from the so-called civilisations evolved to the south of him. He
is his own man.

In the rest of America and in Europe we have formulated a rule of "One
man, One wife," allowing an elasticity of the rule in Chicago and
elsewhere, so that it may read, "One man, one wife at a time." Are we so
sure of results that we are in a position to force our rule upon the
Eskimo?

Following the animals that God has ordained shall be their daily bread,
in little communal bands they thread the silent places of the North. On
the Arctic foreshore we have a people different to all other peoples;
here is no inherited wealth, no accumulation of property. A man's skill
as a hunter determines his ability to support others, the pursuit of
seal is the pursuit of happiness; life and liberty belong to all. In
many of the little wandering groups or septs or clans the women
outnumber the men. A mighty hunter is able to kill seals at will and
provide blubber enough for two or even three wives. The Canadian Eskimo
is the direct antithesis of the French-Canadian in the matter of large
families; seldom are more than three children born to one mother. Now,
the crux of the matter is this: is it better for one man to marry and
provide for one wife and three children, leaving on the community a
floating sisterhood of unattached females, or is it more sane and
generous for the Northland Nimrod to marry as many wives as he can
comfortably support, and raise up olive-branches to save from
extermination the men of the Kogmollycs, the honourable people of the
Nunatalmutes?

The fact that the women prefer a vulgar-fraction of a man, an Eskimo
equity in connubial bliss, to spearing walrus on their own account is a
significant factor in the problem. And before we piously condemn either
the lord or the lady in the ca