As one can see, a female under all circumstances was to be married to a man at all times. “Because a female was liable to be impregnated by a spirit at anytime, the sensible step was to insist that every female have a husband all the time, so that if she did become pregnant, the child would always have a father” (C. W. M. Hart: 1988, 17). All in all, marriage was a custom that the Tiwi people took to a higher extent. They took a step “from saying ‘All females should be married’ to saying, ‘All females must be married’ ” (C. W. M.:1988, 17).
Was this acceptable by females? Whether it is from seventeenth century or our present day, we hear about the male point of view in a majority of articles, textbooks, etc. Yet, how did the females react to this sort of pattern of being thrown around as an object or a “crop” (C. W. M. Hart et al: 1988, 20)? When asked recently, a widow stated, “Sometimes, a marriage is very hard. When you get married, years pass and then he finds another woman. It’s a good life to stay single with kids (Victoria K. Burbank: 1995, 36). Taken from the twentieth century female, single motherhood was seen to have clearly increased. Though females seem to advance in their power, it does go against the Tiwi idea of having females married while pregnant. Modern actions go against the culture lived in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Regarding men, “young girls don’t like to marry young men because they belt them and make them work… But they like old men better. Because old men can’t make them work… And old men can’t be jealous, they are just going to sit there…” (Victoria K. Burbank: 1995, 38).
Though Tiwi women were first seen to live within a strict patrilineal society, it seems to be advancing in the opposite direction. The question which remains is whether or not such advancement is particularly beneficial, or were Tiwi women better treated as “crops”? Though it is a harsh word used to describe women, the term described men to provide security to women. They were never left by their husbands until death, yet their husbands were shared amongst other women. It seems that in either direction there remains a hardship. Whether it is because of a cultural loss with modernization or a pushback of woman character as in the past Tiwi culture, the role of women is an essential concern.
