Native American Men - and Women - at Home in Plural Marriages in Seventeenth-Century New France
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Authors
Pearsall, Sarah
Publication Date
2015-11Journal Title
Gender and History
ISSN
0953-5233
Publisher
Wiley
Volume
27
Number
3
Pages
591-610
Language
English
Type
Article
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Pearsall, S. (2015). Native American Men - and Women - at Home in Plural Marriages in Seventeenth-Century New France. Gender and History, 27 (3), 591-610. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0424.12152
Abstract
‘To live among us without a wife is to live without help, without home, always a vagabond’.1 So declared an Algonquin ‘juggler’ (or healer, or as the Jesuits had it, sorcerer), Pigarouïch, who was in the process of converting to Christianity in the 1630s. He fretted over the consequences of giving up multiple wives (something acceptable, even desirable, for a powerful healer), should his wife, by choice or necessity, leave him. He found this possibility a powerful deterrent to adopting monogamy; he was not the only one. He was also not simply pointing out, in a sweetly pathetic way, that men could barely survive without their loving wives. Rather, ‘to live without help, without home, always a vagabond’ was to be a socially, economically and politically disadvantaged man. A man needed a home, and a wife (or wives). Social rank came in part from the ability to live in one's house, to be a husband and father.2 Such begins to explain why plural unions mattered so much in New France in the seventeenth century.3 Understanding the importance of these unions illuminates much about men – and women – at home.
Sponsorship
Mellon funding from Cambridge University
British Academy Small Grant
National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship at the Newberry Library
Embargo Lift Date
2050-01-01
Identifiers
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0424.12152
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/248939
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