page_title: Inuit women
section_title: Family structure and marriage
hierarchical_section_title: Inuit women / Role in society / Family structure and marriage
caption_attribution_description: English: Inuit woman with papoose on back, Arctic Alaska.
context_page_description: The Inuit are the most widespread and perhaps the best known aboriginal people on earth. As a very large indigenous group inhabiting the Arctic regions of Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and Russia, the Inuit exhibit many variations in cultural practices and customs.
  In Inuit communities, the women play a crucial role in the survival of the group. The responsibilities faced by Inuit women were considered equally as important as those faced by the men. Because of this, the women were given due respect and are given an equal share of influence or power.
  Recent modernization and urbanization has transformed traditional Inuit culture and influenced the role of women within the culture. These changes include both positive and negative impacts on the overall well-being of Inuit women.
context_section_description: In Inuit culture, marriage was not a choice, but a necessity. Inuit men and women needed each other to survive. Married couples had to work together to overcome nearly impossible living conditions. Because every individual had to rely on a partner to survive, marriages were often arranged at birth to ensure the survival of the family. Love marriages, or choice marriages, existed, but these were all but arranged because there were usually few eligible partners. A young woman was eligible for marriage after puberty, but a man had to prove he was efficient enough in hunting to support a family before he could marry.
  Inuit marriages rarely included large ceremonies; couples were often considered married after the birth of their first child. There were monogamous and polygamous marriages, but polygyny was rare because few men could afford to support multiple wives. Families exchanged gifts before marriages, but no official bride price or dowry was paid. Although men were considered the head of the family, both genders could demand a divorce. However, divorce was frowned upon because it was bad for the family and the community as a whole.
  Spouses were sometimes traded or exchanged, and women had some say in this process. This was a common alternative to divorce because neither family would be without a component vital to its survival — a mother and a wife. In Inuit culture, the family was typically represented by a kudlik (lamp) or a hearth, which was the property and responsibility of the wife. This lamp had significant symbolic meaning in the family, the community, and the culture.
caption: "Madonna of the North" (Inuit woman with child on back, c. 1912)
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