To our perception, they think nothing of lying, cheating, or stealing to get what they desire, and are generally amused by a successful deception. Their concept of the sanctity of life differs westerners profess to hold and guiltlessly murder outsiders if they feel they were cheated. The fetus of awoman's first pregnancy, considered high risk, is usually aborted, as are pregnancies occurring too soon after the birth of the previous child. Most groups practice infanticide, either of unwanted females or deformed infants. Women seem treated more as property than human, and function to bear children and serve the men in her family.
Gender roles are strict.
Marriages are arranged, and a proposition of survival and economy rather than love. The Yanomami view what we call love as a weakness, an obsession that gets in way of normal behavior. Husbands live with, and give allegiance to, his wife's family, allegiance to wife's family. He remains indebted to them for his bride and pays them a bride-price for years, usually until her parents death the payment is in exchange for their daughter's labor and the sons she will give him, and begins nominally at the betrothal, sometimes several years before the actual marriage. A complex system of kinship determines much of Yanomami social behavior, determining exchange obligations and loyalties.