Editing Cherokee (section)

===Marriage===
Before the 19th century, [[polygamy]] was common among the Cherokee, especially by elite men.<ref name="Perdue 1999, p. 176">Perdue (1999), p. 176</ref> The [[matrilineal]] culture meant that women controlled property, such as their dwellings, and their children were considered born into their mother's [[clan]], where they gained hereditary status. Advancement to leadership positions was generally subject to approval by the women elders. In addition, the society was [[matrifocal]]; customarily, a married couple lived with or near the woman's family, so she could be aided by her female relatives. Her eldest brother was a more important mentor to her sons than was their father, who belonged to another clan. Traditionally, couples, particularly women, can divorce freely.<ref>Perdue (1999), pp. 44, 57–8</ref>

It was unusual for a Cherokee man to marry a European-American woman. The children of such a union were disadvantaged, as they would not belong to the nation. They would be born outside the clans and traditionally were not considered Cherokee citizens. This is because of the matrilineal aspect of Cherokee culture.<ref name="Perdue 1999, p. 176"/> As the Cherokee began to adopt some elements of European-American culture in the early 19th century, they sent elite young men, such as [[John Ridge]] and [[Elias Boudinot (Cherokee)|Elias Boudinot]] to American schools for education. After Ridge had married a European-American woman from Connecticut and Boudinot was engaged to another, the Cherokee Council in 1825 passed a law making children of such unions full citizens of the tribe, as if their mothers were Cherokee. This was a way to protect the families of men expected to be leaders of the tribe.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Yarbough |first=Fay |s2cid=144646968 |title=Legislating Women's Sexuality: Cherokee Marriage Laws |journal=Journal of Social History |volume=38 |year=2004 |issue=2 |pages=385–406 [p. 388] |doi=10.1353/jsh.2004.0144 }}</ref>

In the late nineteenth century, the U.S. government put new restrictions on marriage between a Cherokee and non-Cherokee, although it was still relatively common. A European-American man could legally marry a Cherokee woman by petitioning the federal court, after gaining the approval of ten of her blood relatives. Once married, the man had status as an "Intermarried White," a member of the Cherokee tribe with restricted rights; for instance, he could not hold any tribal office. He remained a citizen of and under the laws of the United States. [[Common law marriage]]s were more popular. Such "Intermarried Whites" were listed in a separate category on the registers of the [[Dawes Rolls]], prepared for allotment of plots of land to individual households of members of the tribe, in the early twentieth-century federal policy for [[cultural assimilation|assimilation]] of the Native Americans.