DCHP-2

country wife "country" wife, "country wife" DCHP-2 (August 2016)

• n. — Fur trade, historical

  a woman of Aboriginal or part-Aboriginal descent who was the common-law wife of a fur trade employee.

  Type: 1. Origin — A country wife was a woman of Aboriginal or part-Aboriginal ancestry who lived in a lasting domestic relationship with a man employed in the fur trade. Their marriage was described as "after the custom of the country," or, in French "à la façon du pays" (see Van Kirk 1980: 28). Many of these relationships were permanent, although some men abandoned their partners, and the children, particularly the boys, were often educated so as to gain employment in the trade. As settlement took over from the fur trade, these relationships were socially condemned (see Johnson [1893] 2002, "A Red Girl's Reasoning"). Since these relationships were uncharacteristic of other colonial settlements elsewhere (Van Kirk 1980: 4), this term is Canadian by origin.
  Chart 1 shows the prevalence of the form in Canada, where it almost unanimously refers to the present meaning. All other domains pertain to different meanings, yet the .ca domain still shows the highest frequency.
  See also COD-2, s.v. "country wife", which is marked "Cdn hist.".

  See also: country alliance  country marriage  wife of the country  country-born