"[127] In spite of the
maternal system in North America, the women were often roughly handled
by their husbands. Schoolcraft says of the Kenistenos: "When a young
man marries, he immediately goes to live with the father and mother
of his wife, who treat him, nevertheless, as an entire stranger till
after the birth of his first child." But
it appears that chastity is considered by them as a virtue
... and it sometimes happens that the infidelity of a wife
is punished by the husband with the loss of her hair, nose,
or perhaps life. Such severity proceeds, perhaps, less from
rigidity of virtue than from its having been practiced without
his permission; for a temporary interchange of wives is not
uncommon, and the offer of their persons is considered as a
necessary part of the hospitality due to strangers.[128]
Schoolcraft also says of the women of the Chippeways, among whom the
maternal system had given way:
They are very submissive to their husbands, who have however,
their fits of jealousy; and for very trifling causes treat
them with such cruelty as sometimes to occasion their death.
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