(The following is from an arranged marriage of a Cheyenne girl).

Some older men from the grooms family came to the brides family to arrange the marriage.  After consideration, the father consented.  The next day, five good saddle horses and other goods were sent to her lodge.  The father encouraged her to accept the proposal, but said, "we do not wish to do anything against your will."  The girl usually did whatever the father deemed best for her.

Her family would then accept the horses, and in return, give the prospective in-laws five in return.  She mounted one of them and rode with a delegation to the nearby camp of her future husband.  The young man's women relatives met her and, placing her on a blanket, carried her to his tipi.  She went in and sat beside him.  The women brought dresses, shawls, rings, bracelets, leggings, and moccasins.  They dressed her splendidly, braided her hair, and painted red dots on her cheeks.  Then she returned to her own camp, where her mother and aunt had prepared a marriage feast and where a new tipi was erected for the couple.  The in-laws told jokes and funny stories, and recounted exploits of war.  Then they went away and left the couple in their new home.  

Normally, the courtship period for young adults might last four, five, or even six years.  The girl usually had more power of choice; the suitor ordinarily had a more difficult job in winning his mate.  A young man would wait near a spot where his favored girl might pass, hoping for a few words or a smile.  Gaining courage, he would appear before her lodge to talk to her about everything but love.  If all went well, they might exchange rings of horn or metal in promise of marriage.  But it was unlikely that a girl would make such a promise to a young man who had not been to war; until then he was not considered more than a boy.

Young men alone on the prairie (scouting, traveling, herding horses) sang songs about their girls:  "My love, it is I who am singing.  Do you hear me?"  Or they would implore:  "My love, come out of the lodge; I am searching for you."

Flute playing was supposed to win a girl's heart, and some enchanted flutes were said to cast a spell of love over even a reluctant maiden.  These magical flutes were a specialty of Sioux medicine men.  

The Sioux had a clearly prescribed method of courting.  A boy might meet a girl in front of her tipi, throw his robe over her and himself and, standing in front of her family and perhaps curious younger brothers and sisters, embrace and whisper with her.  On a pleasant evening, a popular girl might have several suitors waiting their turn.  She could refuse to be embraced under the robe if she did not like the boy, and she could duck out from under the blanket whenever she wanted to.  Thus the young Sioux courted despite being chaperoned.

Among all the Plains Indians, the offering of horses was the universal method of proposing marriage.  As a matter of form, a suitor usually sent the horses to the girl's lodge and made his official proposal of marriage through a relative or friend.  To reject the suitor the girl had the horses sent back to his lodge, or simply ignored them; if she took them to water or let them be mixed with her father's herd, she accepted the proposal.  

The marriage ceremony itself, which always included a big feast, often took place within the next day or two.  At that time, the wife made her formal departure from her own family and went to her husband's lodge, bringing with her horses and other gifts equaling his in value.

A Plains Indian man was the head and the boss of his household.  He lived in a male-dominated society, and in some cases, he treated the women as subjects in a cruel, even inhuman manner.  A customary punishment for infidelity was cutting off the wife's nose.  Yet despite male dominance most Plains women lived a satisfying, self-respecting life.  Many men were killed in the chase and at war.  One result of an excess population of women was plural marriage; and such a society of a few hundred or a few thousand souls, seeing themselves as one tribe, one people, always faced with the possible threat of extinction, adopted the institution of plural wives.  Why should a woman of child bearing age be without a mate simply because women outnumbered men?  

Polygamy was widespread, but not universal.  In many instances a man and one woman worked out their destinies together without having sexual relations with anyone else.  A Plains woman might welcome (or even suggest) the bringing of a new wife into the lodge.  There was plenty of work for women.  If it could be shared with a friendly companion, so much the better.  The problem of jealousy was often eased by a man's marrying the sister of his first wife; familiarity and dominance would already be established, and the first wife would remain the female leader of the household.  The prize for the largest number of wives among the Cheyenne's should have gone to a man named Crooked Neck.  He had five...all sister.  Upon being made a chief, Crooked Neck gave three wives away, but he spent the rest of his life with the other two.