Wido Remarriage
Another type of marriage system for the Tiwi is that of widow remarriage. Since we know that the Tiwi believe that no woman should be single, she must remarry if her husband dies. In the Tiwi culture since most women are married to old husbands, this type of marriage tends to occur frequently. In this case, women have the advantage in the system because by now most females are mothers and have more experience in marriage than younger females. This type of marriage benefits women because they now have the right to select their husband. Although there are many scenarios that may happen, the most common one is that of a woman having high ranking sons. In this case, the woman may persuade her sons to obligate or to offer her in marriage to the male that she desires. Thus this is the chance for the low ranking young male to acquire his first wife. This in other words is the loop hole of the Tiwi marriage system; because this is how most young men start gaining political power in their society. The most common case is that of a 30 year old male marrying a 40 to 60 year old female. Thus not always the case,
“a Tiwi husband was unavoidably and necessarily always much older than a bestowed wife. Therefore he usually died much earlier than she. A girl of 14 who entered into residence with her first husband when he was 50 was likely to be left a widow by him within the next 15 years, and even if she remarried a man of the same age as her first husband, she could easily be widowed for the second time while still herself a comparatively young woman.”[4]
Therefore there are many variations in ages of widow remarriage, but by far the most interesting is that of old widows. Although most old wives may not be very sexually active, she helps develop the ranking of the male which will lead to new wives which are usually given by betrothal. Perhaps the most important role an old wife plays in the Tiwi society is that of a teacher. When a male gains new wives which by this time would be about 8 to 10 years old, the old female would act as a mentor of the girls to teach them how to do house chores and also how to gather food. Without old women in the household, there would be a lack of experience in food gathering, thus the inexperienced young wives would not gather any food at all putting the household in danger.
A typical practice of Tiwi culture is that two high ranking male would marry each other mothers. Thus if any of the high ranking males’ mothers widows they would usually marry the mother of each other. This practice is done to “take care of their mothers”. By the time males reach high ranking status, usually their mothers are very old thus requiring special homecare attention. The solution is marrying each other’s mom, this would enable them to take care of their mothers and it would also give the males more status among the tribe because the have married another wife. Over all, widow remarriage provides younger males with the opportunity of marriage. This is by far the only way a young male can generate enough status to actually have a wife by betrothal.
