Actually, we know quite the opposite. If East Ralios follows the old Irish model closely, we will find that marriage can be just a way of organizing households, with little relationship to who sleeps with (or does it standing up with, or ...) whom. Possibly the men have a disinclination to actually raising another man's get, but many if not most Orlanthi marriages are term, not whole-life, anyway.
> KoS p174:
> "...King Vurgunzon incited all of his wife's lovers to attack the
> Kurtali clan at once."
> Now admittedly this is the Kitori, who are anything but standard
> Orlanthi. But it does make one think.
One of these days I am going to HAVE to write up that monograph "Coming of Age Among the Kitori" to nail down just how unstandard Kitori sex lives are (think interspecies infertility, oriface size differentials, and smaller thus more deft fingers and tongues). Also, remember that they are on the border with the Queendoms, where polyandry is common among the upper classes.
Anyway, Thomas's beliefs of Orlanthi chastity probably ARE valid among Aeolian Orlanthi, even if nonsense among, say, semi-stone age Brolians (who are still Orlanthi, at least by courtesy), or the East Ralians.
End of The Glorantha Digest V6 #414
Powered by hypermail