Emma Hirsch

After marriage, power is something that changed for all cultures. Some in better ways, and some in worse. For the Europeans, women seemed to lose a lot of power, and the men seemed to gain power. When people began to start getting married, the roles in their homes started to shift. For each culture there was an assigned gender who would hold the power. For Europeans, the men were in charge of the home. They held the power, they handled the problems, and they would protect their family and their home. The men decided that the women weren’t responsible enough, even though they were the ones staying home taking care of the children. This shows that after marriage you can lose a lot of your rights and power as a woman. This was unfair to all the European women, and they often found themselves jealous of the Native American women. While the European women were treated poorly, the Native American women were the leaders.

Zoe Karp

Native American divorce was much more common than European divorce and was much more important for their culture. For Native Americans, divorce was one of the ways that the women showed their power over the men. Native American women were always the ones who initiated the divorce. In this culture, adultery was not the only cause of divorce. Most of the causes that happen today happened then as well. When a woman divorced a man, she would throw his clothes out of the house. This would also be a sign to the neighbors and others in the community that they were getting a divorce. When the men got home from hunting, fishing or protecting the village and found their clothes outside of the house, the women would shut the doors and not let them back in. Just like in European culture, the women would take care of the children. This was one of the many ways that women could show their power over men. They would be completely in charge of the situation and if the men argued, the women just ignored them. Throwing the clothes out of the house was a symbol. This meant that the man couldn’t come back in the house, but it also told the others in the community that there was a divorce happening, so no one addressed them as a married couple anymore. Just like in the European culture, the women had to take the children after the divorce. Also like in the European culture, the women were the only ones taking care of the children, even before the divorce. The men were always so busy that they didn’t really have time to spend time with their children, so the women were the ones to take the children. Native American culture was the only culture where the women had so much power over the men, unlike the African culture, where the men had much more power over the women. African marriage and married life were much different than the other two cultures.