There are two kinds of marriages among the Dahcotahs, buying a wife and
stealing one. The latter answers to our runaway matches, and in some
respects the former is the ditto of one conducted as it ought to be
among ourselves. So after all, I suppose, Indian marriages are much like
white people's.
But among the Dahcotahs it is an understood thing that, when the young
people run away, they are to be forgiven at any time they choose to
return, if it should be the next day, or six months afterwards. This
saves a world of trouble. It prevents the necessity of the father
looking daggers at the son-in-law, and then loving him violently; the
mother is spared the trial of telling her daughter that she forgives her
though she has broken her heart; and, what is still better, there is not
the slightest occasion whatever for the bride to say she is wretched,
for having done what she certainly would do over again to-morrow, were
it undone.
So that it is easy to understand why the Dahcotahs have the advantage of
us in runaway matches, or as _they_ say in "stealing a wife;" for it is
the same thing, only more honestly stated.
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