132 Part II: Outsiders
full partner with her husband in the economic survival of the family. Carol Ember
(1983) amassed evidence that women in horticultural (i.e., swidden) societies
work longer and harder than men in these societies, and also more than do women
in societies practicing intensive agriculture. She suggests that this is because men
devote themselves to politics and protection, leaving women to work in the fields
once the hard part of clearing a new field is done. When men get pulled out of cul-
tivation during warfare, if they find that women can carry on for the most part
without their help, there is little incentive for them to return to the fields.
To have a wife is therefore essential, and she will not come cheap. If a man
wants a wife, and wants to claim her children for his family and clan, he will
have to pay a brideprice in silver. Traditionally this silver was in the form of
Indian silver rupees that circulated for years in the hills of Southeast Asia, sup-
plied by Indian traders settled in the larger towns like Chiangmai. One still
sometimes sees these, bearing images of the young Victoria with braids looping
around her ears, but these are becoming rare, since India no longer mints
rupees in real silver. Most of the old coins have been melted down and are now
traded in the form of ingots or silver neck rings. The value of the silver is gener-
ally high, more than the savings of a household for several years.
Fathers may sometimes try to arrange these marriages, and child betrothals
are occasionally agreed to with the exchange of a bottle of liquor and four silver
rupees, but girls are rarely forced into marriages they do not want, and they do
not have to stay in marriages where they are not well treated. There are too
many opportunities for boys and girls to fall in love and decide they will marry.
There is, for example, the famous “courting ball game” played at New Year’s,
unfailingly mentioned in all accounts of the Hmong (and of the Miao in
China). Gathering in a group of young people, girls on one side and boys on
the other, they toss a soft cloth ball in a rather flirtatious way. Afterwards, cou-
ples may romantically pair off during the freedom allowed during the holidays.
When the new bride comes to her husband’s house, she is introduced to the
house spirits and ancestors and becomes a member of her husband’s clan. She
begins a life of industrious labor, both productive and reproductive. She may
well be older than her husband. Geddes found that first wives were on average
two years older than their husbands. People said that boys marry when 15 or
16, girls around 20. This may be the result of the greater sexual freedom that
allows boys to become involved with girls already somewhat more sexually
mature, followed soon by marriage.
Men are entitled to go right on flirting after they are married, but if they get
a girl pregnant, they had better be able to provide the silver to marry her. Men
and women have very divergent points of view about polygyny, which a major-
ity of men who survive to middle age will have experienced. Women do not
enjoy sharing a bed with their husband and another wife, which is how the sys-
tem works. Being a second wife is less prestigious than being a first, but having
a second, younger wife brought in by one’s husband is also humiliating. Theo-
retically a first wife’s permission must be obtained. If she has no children she