Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 November 1880 — Courtship in Greenland. [ARTICLE]

Courtship in Greenland.

There is something exceedingly melancholy in the accounts which are given of the custom of courtship in Greenland Generally women enter upon the blessed estate with more willingness and less solicitude than men. The women of Greenland arj an exception to this rule. A Greenlander, having hto affections upon some female, acquaints his parents with the state of his heart. They apply to the parents of the giri, and if the parents are thus agreed the next proceeding to to appoint two female negotiators whose duty Is to broach the subject to the young lady. This is a matter of great tact and delicacy. The lady ambassadors do not shock the young lady to whom they are sent by any sudden or abrupt avowal of the awful subject of their mission. Instead of doing this they launch out in praises of the gentleman who seeks her hand. They speak of the splendor of his house, the sumptuousness of his ftirniture, of his courage and skill in catching seals, and other accomplishments. The lady, pretending to be affronted even at these remote hints, runs away, tearing the ringlets of hair as she retires, while the. ambassadresses, having got the consent of her parents, pursue her, take her by force to the house of her destined husband, and there leave her. Compelled to remain there, she sits for days with dishevelled hair, silent and dqjected, refusing every kind of sustenance, until at last, if kind entreaties do not prevail, she is compelled by force, and even by blows, to submit to the detested union. In some cases the Greenland women faint at the proposals of marriage; in others they fly to the mountains and only return when compelled to do so by hunger and cold. If one cute off her hair it to a sum that she is determined to resist to death. The Greenland wife is the slave of her husband, doomed to a life of toil, drudgery and privation.