“The two women dispute for the supremacy, often in a desperate pitched battle with sharp stones, seconded by their respective friends.  They maul each other’s faces with savage violence, and if one is knocked down her friends assist her to regain her feet, and the brutal combat is renewed until one or the other is driven from the wigwam.  The husband stands by and looks placidly on, and when all is over he accepts the situation, retaining in his lodge the woman who has conquered the territory.”

ABSENCE OF FEMININE JEALOUSY

As a rule, however, there is more bark than bite in the conduct of the wives of a polygamous household, as is proved by the ease with which the husband, if he cares to, can with words or presents overcome the objections of his first wife to new-comers; even, for instance, in the case of such advanced barbarians as the Omaha Indians, who are said to have actually allowed a wife to punish a faithless husband—­an exception so rare as to be almost incredible.  Dorsey says of the Omahas (26): 

“When a man wishes to take a second wife he always consults his first wife, reasoning thus with her:  ’I wish you to have less work to do, so I think of taking your sister, your aunt, or your brother’s daughter for my wife.  You can then have her to aid you with your work.’  Should the first wife refuse, the man cannot marry the other woman.  Generally no objection is offered, if the second woman be one of the kindred of the first wife.  Sometimes the wife will make the proposition to her husband:  ’I wish you to marry my brother’s daughter, as she and I are one flesh.’”

Concerning the inhabitants of the Philippine island of Mindanao, a German writer says (Zeit. fuer Ethn., 1885, 12): 

     “The wives are in no way jealous of one another; on the
     contrary, they are glad to get a new companion, as that
     enables them to share their work with another.”

Schwaner says of the Borneans that if a man takes a second wife he pays to the first the batu saki, amounting to from sixty to one hundred guilders, and moreover he gives her presents, consisting of clothes, “in order to appease her completely,” In reference to the tribes of Western Washington and Northwestern Oregon, Gibbs says (198): 

“The accession of a new wife in the lodge very naturally produces jealousy and discord, and the first often returns for a time in dudgeon to her friends, to be reclaimed by her husband when he chooses, perhaps after propitiating her by some presents.”

Such instances might be multiplied ad libitum.