362 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 196 



daughter marriage, and 12 have involved marriages to unrelated 

 women. Only three of the latter occurred prior to 1930. The data 

 show this form of polygyny to be much less stable than the other two 

 types. 



There are seven cases of the simple sororate. If one looks at the 

 matter from the Navaho point of view, including cases of a widower 

 marrying a parallel cousin (or other "clan sister") of his deceased wife, 

 the nmnber mounts to 18. There are only three instances of the 

 simple levirate; seven more as defined by Navaho cultm-e. 



One is tempted to say that sororal polygyny, the sororate and all 

 other forms of marriages preferred by this culture are merely special 

 instances of the more general principle; repeated exchanges between 

 two extended f amihes or other groups of close relatives. This generahzation 

 will cover the overwhelming majority of all Ramah marriages,^^ em- 

 bracing such instances as the following which are less sharply patterned 

 than the exchange of marriageable siblings between two biological or 

 extended families. A man married the divorced wife of his sister's 

 son. Another married the widow of his sister's son. Conversely, 

 another Navaho married the widow of his mother's brother. Still 

 another married two daughters born to the wives of his mother's 

 brother by their previous marriages. A young man married the 

 daughter of his father's divorced wife (from Thoreau) . Six men have 

 married a sister of a wife from whom they had been divorced. One 

 man married three sisters in succession with one of the two from 

 whom he was divorced marrying his biological brother and the other 

 marrying his parallel cousin. There are numerous cases of men 

 marrying former wives of their brothers and of women marrying 

 brothers or "clan brothers" of their ex-husbands. Two men (brothers) 

 married (in succession) the daughter of their brother-in-law by a 

 former marriage. In this instance, as in others, one has grounds to 

 suspect the factor of sheer propinquity as well as that of the pat- 

 terned economic and other reciprocities. In fact, one can ordinarily 

 separate these two factors only by somewhat artificial abstraction. 

 Quite frequently, the relationships involved become somewhat intri- 

 cate. For example, a man married as his first wife the sister of his 

 sister's husband and as his second wife the daughter of his father's 

 sister's son (who was also the man's mother's brother's son). 



In most cases, Navaho women are younger than their husbands. 

 Often — and this iucreasingly in the last 20 years — the difference in 



M There is, to be sure, always a first time. But one marriage of any duration almost always leads to 

 others. An instance occuring in the 1940-50 decade is entirely representative. In 1942, Jo Miguel married 

 Mary, the daughter of Pete Caballo. Two years later a marriage was arranged between Jo's son. Easy, and 

 a cousin of Mary. In 1946, Jo also married Mary's sister. In 1949, Pete, Mary's father, married the young 

 daughter of Jo. 



