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The usual Mohave marriage is defined as the sharing of a residence together. Since most such 'marriages' are of short duration, an atypical marriage might be one of an unusually short or long duration, or one where both spouses were either completely faithful or utterly promiscuous. Deviant marriage are considered to be those deviating from the accepted tribal custom, such as marriages between the young and old where economic factors play a predominant role, or marriages with transvestites. Polygyny, always more or less exceptional, is now obsolete among the Mohave and has been replaced by successive monogamy, inextricably intermingled with constant adultery.
In aboriginal times, the marriage of a young man to an old woman was almost unknown. Young men then were almost afraid of old women, and even avoided marriage to a woman who already had two or three children. To counteract this, some old women tried to give presents to young boys to lure them into marriage, but most boys continued afraid of them. In spite of social disapproval, such marriages have become more frequent in recent times; in fact, it is now typical for a young divorced or widowed man to marry his former mother-in-law, probably because old women work harder and are better housewives than the young ones. Some men, tired of being neglected by their flighty and fickle young wives, even go so far as to marry transvestites, who, in order to attract 'husbands', work very hard and try to be exceptionally proficient housewives. Young men just out of the government boarding school are usually so sex starved that they hastily marry the first old woman. It is only after a few years, when no longer sexually starved, that they devote at least a few days to courting a young girl just out of boarding school. As a result, it is common for girls just out of school to marry older, more experienced, and sometimes quite unattractive men. Both such hasty types of marriage are usually unsatisfactory and increas