Society was probably arranged in bilateral exogamus kin groups.
Inheritance may have been patrilineal. Marriage was a rather casual
arrangement, the ceremony simple. Immediate residence was patrilocal,
or at the father’s hut. Later, the couple built their own shelter.
There was some polygamy, Steward (1938) notes that society was
organized bilaterally in most places in the Intermontane Area. Relative
equality of the sexes resulted from their approximately equal economic
importance. If bison hunting and warfare tended to give northern
Shoshone and Ute men an advantage, no formal institutions had developed
to indicate it. Social organization was Neo-Hawaiian (Murdock, 1949)
according to Stewart’s kin term list.