| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Myrrhee |
Posted - April 09 2018 : 1:04:00 PM
What do you all know about marriage in these times between people living in remote areas? If two settlers decided they wanted to marry, would they have to travel to a more populated place to get married? Were there any legal proceedings involved, or were Christian/Catholic/Moravian marriage ceremonies legally binding?
What about marriages amongst the Lenape and Mohawks specifically? I've heard hearsay (only hearsay!) that unions didn't have formal ceremony to them. Did a man and a woman simply build a house together and leave their families, then? What if they insisted on formal ceremony? What would the Lenape or the Mohawk do for a ceremony? |
| 1 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| richfed |
Posted - April 14 2018 : 4:18:39 PM
It was complicated, for sure, but not all that uncommon. (that's how so many people today can claim "native American blood.") Tribes often took white women as slaves. Fur traders & mountain men often married Indian women. As far as Uncus & Alice, I don't think the Brits would look too kindly on that. Remember, though, most Indians scorned the colonists/settlers, as well.
"Expansion Was A Time Of radical change in America. The upheaval of moving west and beginning a new life from scratch was difficult for those who made the trip. "Except for love..." said Isabella Bird of Colorado in 1873, "this is a wretched existence." In spite of the rough conditions and frequent shortages of suitable partners in the West, the pioneers met, fell in love and married, but were forced to adapt their courting to a frontier life. The civilized comforts and proprieties of the East yielded to many new ways of finding a mate, from personal ads to rental brides. The West was not all wild, however: Religion still played a strong role in western life, whether lovers were Mormon, Catholic, Baptist or Buddhist; and the traditions of immigrants from Europe, Asia and the Americas all helped to form courtship and marriage rituals on the frontier." -- Inside flap of I Do: Courtship, Love & Marriage on the American Frontier by Cathy Luchetti.
Hope that helps you a little bit. I'm certainly no marriage expert - not even on present-day nupitals!  |
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![The Mohican Board! [Bumppo's Redux!]](images/wwwboard.gif "The Mohican Board! [Bumppo's Redux!]")
