[686] On the radical difference between elopement and capture see Fison and Howitt, Kamilaroi and Kurnai, 354, 343, 348-51; and compare Ploss, Das Weib, I, 53, 54; Westermarck, op. cit., 223.
[687] Darwin, op. cit., chap. xx, 597, 598.
Among the Point Barrow Eskimo marriages are formed for "reasons of interest." Sometimes a wife is taken against her will. Yet "women appear to stand on a footing of perfect equality with the men both in the family and in the community." The "wife is the constant and trusted companion of the man in everything except the hunt, and her opinion is sought in every bargain or other important undertaking."—Murdoch, in IX. Rep. of Bureau of Eth., 410, 413, 414. Cf. Egede, Greenland, 144.
[688] Westermarck, op. cit., 216, 9. Captain Musters, At Home with the Patagonians (1872), affirms that the finest trait of the Patagonian "Tehuelches character is 'their love for their wives and children; matrimonial disputes are rare, and wife-beating unknown; and the intense grief with which the loss of a wife is mourned is certainly not 'civilized,' for the widower will destroy all his stock and burn all his possessions,' and possibly become careless of his life." A similar affection is shown among the Eskimo, who are also polygynous: Wake, Marriage and Kinship, 184, 185.
Free courtship exists among the Omahas: Dorsey, "Omaha Sociology," III. Rep. of Bureau of Eth., 259, 260; and in general there is sometimes individual choice among the Siouan peoples: idem, "Siouan Sociology," ibid., XV, 178.
[689] Dobrizhoffer, Account, II, 207; cf. Darwin, op. cit., chap. xx, 598; and Ploss, Das Weib, I, 53, 54; Klemm, Kulturgeschichte, II, 75.
[690] Darwin, op. cit., chap. xx, 598; Westermarck, op. cit., 216.
[691] Westermarck, op. cit., 216, and authorities there cited.
[692] Ploss, op. cit., I, 53.
[693] Among the Kaniagmuts, Thlinkets, Nutkas, and the South American Guanás: Westermarck, op. cit., 215, 216. Divorce is free among the South American Charuas: Darwin, op. cit., 598. For evidence of courtship and consent among the California Indians see Bancroft, Native Races, I, 398, 411, 412. Spencer, op. cit., I, 722, 723, 754, 755, discusses the favorable position of women among the American aborigines and elsewhere, due in part to "likeness of occupations between the sexes." For further illustrations of freedom of choice or of liberty in the family see Pratz, Hist. de la Louisiane, II, 385, 389; Waitz, Anthropologie, III, 101, 103; Ratzel, Hist. of Mankind, II, 125, 128.