> "Clans are exogamous"
Hadn't noticed this before... Note that although Greg blithely says "exogamous" in each case, he defines them differently: you can't marry _or have sex_ within a bloodline, while you "merely" can't marry within a clan. Not a trivial distinction...
> "The clan is also responsible for overseeing marriages within its bloodlines"
Now this is pretty contradictory, granted, unless its wording is even more confus(ed|ing) than it looks.
> So can you marry someone of your clan who is not of your bloodline?
I was going to comment in this in the Sartar population thread, but my attention span must have timed out or something.
I think that where there are several distinct bloodlines in a clan, no one much minds if you live with, including having children with, someone from another bloodline. At least not to the point of claiming it was Unlawful or Incestuous. In some cases this may bring Mild Social Disapproval ("We're Living Together, Mum." "Bah. You should go get yourself a nice rich Enjossi husband.") to in others, legitimisation in the form of some of the "lesser" forms of marriage (Year-spouse, Bedspouse, Love-spouse). "Full" marriage is probably thought to be improper, and/or redundant with members of your clan.
After all, if you live with a person of your own clan, the need for a formal marriage contract is much less; there's no need to haggle about which clan children and communal property belongs to.
I have a feeling the separate notions of Clan and Bloodline are somewhat late delevopments, and symptomatic of large clans and/or a more sophisticated notion of geneology. Where your exact descent is well-documented, you can make a better case that a given marriage within your clan is Not Really Incest. (Of course, since Clans and Bloodlines are (Esrolia excepted) male-line-descent _only_ concepts, so you can be committing incest with an officially unrelated person, too. Most clans deal with this in a rather more sophisticated way than KoS p254 suggests, though, I bet: forbidden clans probably only come about where one splits off from another, and promptly moves into a different tribal territory entirely. You should have a fair idea of which of your neighbours you're too related to.)
Also, I think some (even modern) clans may have only one bloodline, or not bother with the concept, abolishing any discrepancy.
Jonas Schiott:
> In any case, Orlanthi in the East Wilds stick with bloodline exogamity
> (it's our campaign, we can do what we like).
I'd tend to think these Old Timers would tend to have smallish clans, and no bloodline distinction, myself.
Alex.
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