DCHP-1 Online
blanket marriage 
among North American Indians, a marriage performed according to local custom, in some tribes by having a blanket placed over the couple.
See also: longhouse marriage
- 1927 (1928) ". . . there is a good deal of . . . loose living among the Indians and breeds since the white man came into this country. Nearly all of them just have a blanket marriage, and there are so few in here that they'd marry their own sisters if they dared, for the priest." "What's a blanket marriage?" said I. "Oh, a lad sees a girl he wants, and he takes his blanket to her tent, and they're married as long as he leaves it there."
- 1958 The reference to "legitimate child" raised the question in the Committee of the status of a so-called "blanket marriage," entered into according to local custom.
- 1927 (1928) ". . . there is a good deal of . . . loose living among the Indians and breeds since the white man came into this country. Nearly all of them just have a blanket marriage, and there are so few in here that they'd marry their own sisters if they dared, for the priest." "What's a blanket marriage?" said I. "Oh, a lad sees a girl he wants, and he takes his blanket to her tent, and they're married as long as he leaves it there."