later times by preference to a white man, though it
is known that he will probably soon abandon his wife. In Oregon and
Washington "wives, particularly the later ones, are often sold or
traded off.... A man sends his wife away, or sells her, at his will."
(Gibbs, 199.)

OTHER WAYS OF THWARTING FREE CHOICE

Besides this commercialism, which was so prevalent that, as Dr.
Brinton says (_A.R._, 48), "in America marriage was usually by
purchase," there were various other obstacles to free choice. "In a
number of tribes," as the same champion of the Indian remarks, "the
purchase of the eldest daughter gave a man a right to buy all the
younger daughters as they reached nubile age." Concerning the
Blackfeet--who were among the most advanced Indians--Grinnell says
(217) that

"all the younger sisters of a man's wife were regarded
as his potential wives. If he was not disposed to marry
them, they could not be disposed of to any other man
without his consent." "When a man dies his wives become
the potential wives of his brother." "In the old days,
it was a very poor man who did not have three wives.
Many had six, eight, and some more than a dozen."

Morgan refers (_A.S._, 432) to forty tribes where sisters were
disposed of in bunches; and in all such cases liberty of choice is of
course out of the question. Indeed the wide prevalence of so utterly
barbarous and selfish a custom shows us vividly how far from the
Indian's mind in general was the thought of seriously consulting the
choice of girls.

Furthermore, to continue Dr. Brinton's enumeration, "the selection of
a wife was often regarded as a concern of the gens rather than of the
individual. Among the Hurons, for instance, the old women of the gens
selected the wives for the young men, and united them with painful
uniformity to women several years their senior." "Thus," writes Morgan
(_L. of I._, 320),

"it often happened that the young warrior at
twenty-five was married to a woman of forty, and
oftentimes a widow; while the widower at sixty was
joined to a maiden of twenty."

Besides these obstacles to free choice there are several others not
referred to by Dr. Brinton, the most important being the custom of
wrestling for a wife, and of infant betrothal or very early marriage.
According to a passage in Hearne (104) cited on a previous occasion,
and corroborated by W.H. Hooper and J. Richardson, it has always