"They don't know what the word means." Which is exactly the fact--they didn't.

How could they?
Back in their prehistoric records of polygamy and slavery there were no ideals of wifehood as we know it, and since then no possibility of forming such.
"The only thing they can think of about a man is FATHERHOOD!" said Terry in high scorn.

"FATHERHOOD! As if a man was always wanting to be a FATHER!" This also was correct.

They had their long, wide, deep, rich experience of Motherhood, and their only perception of the value of a male creature as such was for Fatherhood.
Aside from that, of course, was the whole range of personal love, love which as Jeff earnestly phrased it "passeth the love of women!" It did, too.

I can give no idea--either now, after long and happy experience of it, or as it seemed then, in the first measureless wonder--of the beauty and power of the love they gave us.
Even Alima--who had a more stormy temperament than either of the others, and who, heaven knows, had far more provocation--even Alima was patience and tenderness and wisdom personified to the man she loved, until he--but I haven't got to that yet.
These, as Terry put it, "alleged or so-called wives" of ours, went right on with their profession as foresters.