Jeff is exploring similar territory to me at the moment, Heortling bridewealth, dowry and courting.
> I'm more curious about brideprice/morning gift/dowry. As a rule of
> thumb I am working with 1/4 or 1/3 of other spouse's weregild (using
> the bride's father's price if need be)
Values are obviously more than a bit abstract in Hero Wars, and things like actual bridewealth and dowry payments will obviously vary quite a bit from campaign to campaign, clan to clan and marriage to marriage. I like the idea of tying payments to weregild, but personally would use the *full* weregild as a starting point in negotiations - what, after all, are your wife and children worth? Brideservice (see below) may be an important part of the agreement, especially for a relatively poor man, and it has the advantage of allowing the woman and her clan to get to know the suitor on their own terms.
SOME THOUGHTS ON HEORTLING COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE "It is never easy to court a Heortling woman. Nor should it be."
ROTO in KOS is our current main source, especially pgs 242-43. TR will contain more.
Lets start with the basics. I'll concentrate on the "default" traditional patrilineal clan where most wives join their husbands, though of course with different tribal kinship systems and seven different types of marriage the variations can be enormous. (You may find it an interesting thought-experiment to follow through courtship and marriage in a matrilineal Heortling clan, or for a rich woman who plans an Esrolian marriage.)
Also, since the coming of the Lunars, intermarriage with non-tribal partners is increasingly common, sometimes with little or no regard for traditional Heortling marriage customs.
By contrast, women are colder and more calculating, and not often swayed by romance alone when it comes to choosing a husband. For a woman, marriage usually means leaving her tula and the protection of her family and kin for an uncertain future amidst strangers. It is not a decision to be taken lightly. Potential husbands must be bold (but not too bold), economically secure, and willing to listen. Equally important is that they must belong to a trustworthy bloodline and command enough respect to be listened to and heeded at their home stead.
By contrast, marriage is monogamous and exclusive, a sacred bond upheld by law. Adultery will often result in divorce, and a loss of status for the offender, and fines for his or her bloodline. Heort taught that "Sex is easy, marriage is hard, and the gods bless the sworn bond."
CAMPAIGN COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE - A TYPICAL PROGRESSION Here's my take on one set of possibilities; a typical life progression for men and women in 'default' patrilineal clans, written with campaign play and scenarios in mind. There are lots of opportunities for honour, foul play, questing, contests, poetry, political scheming, defending clan pride, desperately grabbing for goodies, vanquishing rivals, feats of martial valour and the odd bit of cattle raiding.
Our heroes: Braggi Afraid-of-the-Dark is a typical young cattle herder of the Twin Birch clan, which is prosperous and stable though not exceedingly wealthy. Kandreya Four Steps is a young woman of the Bluecloud clan of a neighbouring tribe. Her bloodline is prosperous, her father renowned, and Kandreya herself will inherit a hereditary cult title from her mother, so she knows she will attract a good deal of attention during courtship.
POST-INITIATION
BRAGGI
Braggi's first herd and the chance to build wealth and status completely
occupy his imagination. As the skalds proclaim, 'Cattle are better than
women!" He engages in sexual fumbling and exploration, but no serious
courting. His tendency to fall passionately in love (from afar) several
times a season can be cured only by a serious dedication to cattle raiding.
KANDREYA
As she grows into womanhood, Kandreya learns the secrets of wealth and
fertility and lust from her mother, female kin and Earth priestess sponsors.
Usually accompanied by her brothers, she begins to journey beyond her stead,
perhaps visiting married sisters in other clans or attending tribal rituals.
She learns to evaluate young men in a cold though honest way, and she begins
to assess the relative wealth and prestige of neighbouring clans.
LATE ADOLESCENCE
BRAGGI
Braggi slowly builds his herds and personal wealth, goes on adventures,
makes mistakes. In matters of romance, his passionate fixations, hopeless
causes, foolhardy acts of bravado and continual boasting to companions and
kin may all cause embarrassing moments. His comparative lack of wealth and
status means that any serious offers will be laughed at. Young women will
still pointedly call him "boy". With typical Orlanthi passion, Braggi's
infatuated 'affairs of the heart' may turn to hatred over real or imagined
slights.
KANDREYA
Kandreya does her best to ensure that her family and hearth are in harmony,
and spend lots of time with her female cousins sharing information on the
wealth and menfolk of neighbouring clans. She encourages but is careful not
to respond too openly to flirting and male advances. She may take lovers
discretely. In doing so, Kandreya learns the lessons of Ernalda's courtship,
and how to direct men to each of the six directions. If she decides to take
an adventuring path, she may entrust her fertility to Vinga or to her hearth
sisters for a number of years.
YOUNG ADULTHOOD
BRAGGI
With time, Braggi will gain a name or enough status and wealth to be a
serious suitor (though a reputation as a murderous scourge of Lunar invaders
will not necessarily assist him in the marriage market!) He will begin to
talk seriously to allies about unmarried sisters or daughters, whether or
not he happens to fall passionately in love with them. He will pay closer
attention to suitable women at rituals and markets, and has now learnt that
small gifts and a well-dressed, prosperous appearance will impress women
more than foolhardy acts of boasting or bravado. He may ask the assistance
of a matchmaker or a senior woman of his clan. Alternatively he may depend
upon the good name of his bloodline, and ask his elders' support and
guidance in choosing a match that will have political advantage to the clan.
KANDREYA
Kandreya will have realistically assessed five or six potential suitors, a
mix of well-established older men (widowers or divorcees) and young though
promising men her own age. She is looking to a long-term match, and will
examine closely her potential suitors' clans and tribes, assessing their
wyrd for the next ten or twenty years. Going to her father and uncles, she
will then allow them persuade her that these six men should be given serious
consideration, for the sake of her bloodline. She will then grudgingly agree
to her elders insistence that she accept these men as suitors J. The suitors
will be then encouraged, either directly or through the exhortation and
advice of Kandreya's kin, to attend and begin to seriously court her.
COURTSHIP
BRAGGI
Braggi will be informed of a young woman of appropriate wealth and blood
(lets say its Kandreya), and will first spend some time with her brothers to
gain their support before beginning his courtship. He will herd with them,
or raid with them, or offer his services for the harvest or the hunt. He
will then meet his lady at some public gathering or feast, but not announce
his feelings until he knows with all his heart that he has made the right
choice (Luckily, this usually occurs during the first or second dance).
Braggi then proceeds to win Kandreya's heart by passion and prowess, as Orlanth did: by gifts of lambs and calves and cattle, honey and songbirds, combs and querns, cloaks and Earthshaker teeth, by stirring cattle boasts and recitations of his deeds, by the songs and poems he composes and sings to her beauty, and by vanquishing all of his unworthy, stickpicker, goat-humping, parasitic rivals in the various contests and quests set by his beloved. He will proceed confidently, enjoying the encouragement and confidence of Kandreya's brothers. (Though he might wonder why they seem equally supportive of his rivals - perhaps they are merely displaying polite hospitality to the lesser men).
(In some circumstances, a courtship may be private and the tests and quests largely symbolic, but every Heortling man and women wishes their marriage to be made in the same fashion as Orlanth and Ernaldas'.)
KANDREYA
Kandreya's suitors will gather at her bloodline stead, where they will
provide a handy boost to the labour force for a season or two (though they
have to be fed). With the help of her kin, especially her parents and
brothers, Kandreya will at first encourage all of her suitors equally, being
sure not to give any sign of favouring one above the others.
She will accept gifts, endure the preening and vanity of her suitors, as well as their absurd poetry and song. Kandreya will then set quests and tasks and contests as Ernalda did, that her suitors may prove themselves to be men such as Orlanth. In setting these tests, she will be careful that no one is excluded too soon, but as the seasons progress she will set challenges more likely to favour those she is inclined to choose. As always with women who embrace the wisdom of Ernalda, the suitors will often believe that they have initiated these tests and challenges themselves, to gift her in appropriate ways or to defend her reputation. None suffer, for in proving themselves the men add to their own status in deeds and story.
The final days of the contests can be interesting times, as the status and political schemings of entire clans focus down upon the decision of a single woman. Suitors and their followers will lobby Kandreya's kin mercilessly, and rivals may openly challenge each other or engage in less honourable plots to dissuade the competition. When the decision is finally announced, losers must concede graciously, or there may be serious repercussions. The political and diplomatic skills of the woman and her kin are tested to the full.
CONTRACT
BRAGGI
Braggi has won his beloved! (Of course, this may be the third or fourth time
he has acted as a suitor). The required gifts were a bit rich for his
liking, and the contests were far more than ritual, and seemed to go on
forever! Yet somehow, by luck and courage and determination, he has won
through. Some of those rivals took it very seriously!
In private, Kandreya asks Braggi for a silver wedding torc, and a hearth loom, and two white doves as tradition demands. She hints a the pleasures of Ernalda's secret bower. She entrusts Braggi with one final task: he must persuade her father to gift her a befitting dowry.
Braggi returns to his own tula to smooth the contract with his own bloodline, and then, in company with his father and bloodline elders, returns to formally negotiate a marriage contract, brideprice and dowry with Kandreya's elder kin.
Though the clan will pay its share, Braggi will have to pay for a large part of the brideprice from his personal wealth. He may have to take gifts from senior men and women to afford this; it may be many years before such gifts are repaid. He may choose to pay part of the brideprice in service to Kandreya's parents - this labour may be given before or immediately after the wedding.
KANDREYA
Kandreya has chosen the man - Braggi- who will be suitable as her husband,
and in the company of her sisters and female cousins she allows herself to
begin to enjoy the feelings of being in love. Braggi is a man with potential
for leadership and responsibility in his own clan, well-wyrded without being
too visible, open to persuasion without being passive. Equally importantly,
his clan is prosperous and honourable, and he is popular among his own kin.
First, Kandreya goes to her father and brothers and persuades them that Braggi was the one they had wanted all along, and discusses what a suitable brideprice might be, and what form of marriage might be most appropriate. (Given her relatively high status, Kandreya might conceivably demand an Esrolian or Underhusband pact, but realising the effect this would have on Braggi's status and potential for leadership in his own clan, she is happy to make contract as husband and wife). She then announces her decision to Braggi.
Kandreya then takes the final step, and for the first time allies herself with her husband-to-be against her own kin as she instructs him how he must bargain with her bloodline for a suitable dowry. (The brideprice paid by Braggi and his bloodline will remain with Kandreya's kin as compensation for losing her, while Kandreya's dowry will be her security in her new life on Braggi's tula).
THE WEDDING The couple exchange vows and wedding torcs. There is much feasting and dancing and ribald humour.
Two clans unite in joy and celebration. Gifts are exchanged, vows of eternal loyalty proclaimed, and joint sacrifice offered to the gods of wyrd and beauty.
Kandreya is accompanied by her sisters and female cousins in procession to her new hearth and sleeping platform at the stead of Braggi's parents.
MARRIED LIFE
BRAGGI
Braggi enjoys a new-found respect from his fellow kinsman. He now is fully a
man, and he will be listened to in the moot, and at the fyrd. He cares for
his wife, and listens to her advice, and knows she will produce many healthy
children for his clan.
KANDREYA
As the marriage vows are exchanged, Braggi's formal testing ends and
Kandreya's begins. She must leave her family and home to journey to a new
stead where she is not entirely trusted. She must submit to the tyranny of
Braggi's hearthmistress (the senior female of his bloodline), the casual
cruelty of the other wives and the scorn of Braggi's unmarried sisters. No
matter what her status, she must begin at the bottom of the domestic pecking
order, carrying water and grinding corn by hand like a drudge. She must
nurture and invest her dowry, build new alliances of friendship and support,
and win the respect of Braggi's bloodline.
(Of course, if there is a woman from Kandreya's clan already living at the stead, her dislocation, loneliness and suffering will be lessened considerably. For this reason, sisters often marry into the same clan!)
This period of suspicion often passes quickly, but it is very real. Affinal kin are accepted into the close-knit life of a stead only grudgingly. Though she may rapidly earn status and respect, she will not be completely accepted by Braggi's kin until the birth of her first child - who will be of Braggi's clan. This happy event will be marked by great celebration, and thereafter Kandreya may speak openly at the moot, command her junior sisters and the new wives, and even accept positions of ritual or legal power on the Clan Ring or in worship and ceremony. She might guide her husband to a position of high status, or openly gift and court influence herself.
This time of testing can be very hard for some wives, and many divorces occur in the first hard years of a new marriage.
It is relatively rare for a couple to claim their own stead before their children are initiated. A typical hearth will be home to three or four generations centred on a group of brothers, their wives and offspring.
Surely that's enough for now. :) I'll also post this to the Glorantha Digest, as I suspect the discussion and feedback there will head off in a different direction.
Bright Blessings for Sacred Time
John
nysalor_at_... John Hughes
A merciless war I will declare!
I will make incursions through the fertile land of Ireland,
my battalions all in arms / my amazons beside me
not just to steal a bull / not over beast this battle
but for an honour price a thousand times
more precious - My Dignity!
I will make fierce incursions.
'Medb Speaks'. Nualla Ni Dhomhnaill.
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