SORORATE

marriage of a man to his wife's sister, whether in the lifetime of the first wife or after her death. The term was introduced by the British anthropologist Sir James George Frazer. Though related in principle, the levirate (marriage with a deceased husband's brother) and sororate are usually but not invariably associated and appear to be the most common of preferential secondary marriages. Either may be permissive rather than obligatory. The Maricopa Indians of Arizona traditionally insisted on a widow's marrying a husband's relative, whereas the replacement of a deceased wife by a kinswoman of hers was customary but not compulsory. Though successive and simultaneous marriages of two or more sisters fall under the same principle, some peoples favour one while tabooing the other practice. Hence it has become necessary to distinguish between sororal polygyny and sororate. The typical rule for sororal polygyny is that the husband of the eldest girl in a family marries her juniors as they come of age; this was a practice in at least 40 North American Indian tribes during the 19th century. More recently, Navajo men often were simultaneously married to two sisters, occasionally to three. Australian Aborigines recognized the same preemptive claim, but in many tribes the husband contented himself with the two oldest girls, conveying his claims on their younger sisters to his junior brother. With remarkable unanimity Aborigines explained that in sororal polygyny sisters are unlikely to quarrel as cowives.