This is a fishily post-Rationalist-sounding view for a bunch of "Mediaeval" types to be expounding. Now admittedly, they are the culture who produced the God Learners, whom I agree probably had (in some cases) this sort of outlook, but I'm not so sure modern Malkioni would be prone to reinventing it.
> Peter Metcalfe foolishly disagrees with something [Sandy] said:
> >There is IMO no female equivalent of a Monastic retreat.
> Why not? Female hermits were not unknown in Malorian England,
> for instance.
I'm sure this is true: even with a large quotient of nunneries to get thee too, there seems to be something of a dearth of acceptable female wizard caste roles (or a superfluity of wizard caste females, depending on how you want to look at it).
One thing they may do, following Sandy's suggestion that monks teach budding wizards, is have them responsible for Elementary and Moral education. If they're responsible for all the children of the Lower Orders, and doubtless female Wizard and Noble offspring, this should mop up large numbers of nun-types. (I assume they'd be part of a religious order, though they can be Under Male Supervision if this causes anyone to cough and splutter.)
Having a chunk of the caste celibate and the rest merely highly mortally terrified of Doing It sounds like it would tend to depress the birth rate, out of kilter with the others. Maybe despite Rokari protestations, there's some (subtle) mechanism for inducting out-of- favour nobles, feeble warriors, or uncharacteristically bright peasants.
> Bad Alex:
> >While animals don't, admittedly, have taboos, some social [animals] do
> >have behavioral anti-incest mechanisms, such as booting adolescent
> >males out
> Give me a break. If anti-incest was the "purpose" behind
> these behaviors, then adolescent females would be booted out, too,
> which is so rare as to be nigh-unknown among such animals.
That doesn't follow: what would be the purpose of booting out members of _both_ sexes from the social group, it being hard for one to mate all by itself? (Well, there's inter-generational incest too, but if one booted out _all_ adolescents, one wouldn't have much of a social group left.) In any event, I'm sure no one would make any stronger claim than that this was a behaviour which may be selected for due to genetic Mixmastering, in addition to any other possible benefits.
> >Now if, for some reason, the Six Earths cult only became
> >explicitly dualised in the third age
> I think the Six Earth's cult was restricted to the elves, and
> to the Inner Secrets of the Earth cults, and that hardly anyone knew
> about it before the Second Age, when the GLs spread it abroad.
This may be true, insofar as all six being found together widely, and organised into a neat family tree. I bet each of the (separate) cults was known to (some) humans, though.
> Nonetheless, I heartily agree that an Infertility Spirit is
> clearly one of the Gloranthan critters, to be immediately added to my
> spirit bestiary.
Somewhat naff name, though. I propose Enviromental Oestrogenic Pollutogen - -- no, hang on, that's not right. Spirit of Barrenness? (Sexist term, of course, but then, infertility seems to get largely blamed in women.)
> >The Pamalt cult has five categories of membership: Initiate, Shaman,
> >Acolyte, and Chieftaina.
> And lay member.
Oh yeah. Aka "Child", one would imagine. On which subject:
Simon Hibbs:
> Acolytes would probably be best characterised as 'elders'.
Mubee, but I'm not entirely convinced. "Elders" would tend to be retired chiefs, or Big Wheels on the council of women, I'd think. Becoming an Acolyte seems not to be this restricted.
Alex.
Powered by hypermail