Pima-Papago - Marriage and Family

Marriage. Marriage was permitted with nonrelatives and relatives more remote than second cousins, with marriages arranged by the bride's parents soon after puberty. The levirate and sororate were practiced and polygyny permitted. The husband's first marriage was at sixteen or seventeen years of age. Patrilocal residence was the norm until a couple had several children, when they then built their own house. The primary cause of divorce was a bad temper; next came infidelity. Couples could take their dispute to the Keeper of the Smoke at the central village meeting house (see below). After divorce, men and women tended to remarry quickly.

Domestic Unit. The aboriginal standard was the extended family. Among contemporary Pima-Papago the nuclear Family is the norm, yet extended family members usually live nearby.

Inheritance. In aboriginal times individual property, Including the deceased's house, was destroyed or buried with the dead. Since land is indestructible and was held not Individually but through layers of collective rights, tracts of land, including fields, were neither destroyed after death nor simply transferred to single inheritors. Earth-bound productive resources were constantly but slowly redealt and reshuffled. This is less true today as U.S. probate procedures and Inheritance law are used in each reservation's tribal court. Besides land (primarily on the allotted reservations where land is now leased to outsiders), horses (formerly destroyed), cattle (Primarily on unallotted reservations), and bank savings are now probated.

Socialization. Child rearing discouraged boisterous or affrontive expressions of hostility or anger. As they matured, children were trained to be modest and retiring. Young people were continually taught a moral code of industry, fortitude, and swiftness of foot.