Lange begins by commenting that her approach considers gender and family to be historically determined, with an eye to the inextricability of gender, family, and means of production and survival. She comments that for the Dene, family structure and work designated within it were essential to survival, and that respect accorded to Dene elders (manifested through many things, including the tradition of arranged marriage) was a significant part of social fabric.

The federal day school system, housing, and social welfare transformed largely nomadic people to sedentary villagers, in the mid 1940s and forwards. “Traditional leadership and social organization has [therefore] been profoundly undermined.” (2-3). Using interpreters, Lange conducted discussions and interviews with 38 people in Délı̨nę (then Fort Franklin) in 1986, seeking to include elders in particular. She spoke with 16 men, 22 women, and about 10 of each group were elders. Lange notes later that one of the interviewees was the child of Louis Ayha, now an elder as well.

The importance of unequivocally obeying elders was emphasized by many of Lange’s interviewees; yet, there was a striking difference in people who had been born before and after 1945 regarding arranged marriages. Younger Dene women at the time of interviews were “as appalled by the thought of arranged marriage as most other young Canadian women,” (8) while elder women appear to think it worked out alright in the end.

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Lange, Lynda. “The Changing Situation of Dene Elders and of Marriage, in the Context of Colonialism: The Experience of Fort Franklin 1945-1985.” In Northern Communities: The Prospects for Empowerment, edited by Gurston Dacks and Kenneth Coates. Edmonton: Boreal Institute for Northern Studies, 1986.