Well, I'm hardly one to turn up my nose at the most awesome sex possible, and certainly a lot of men (and women) go to Uleria temples for just that reason, but I'm not sure that it's the main purpose of Uleria. She has the Fertility/Life rune, not the Harmony rune. Her cult engages in sacred prostitution, and in the RW, sacred prostitution had direct applications of encouraging fertility. Since that ties back to her runes, it strongly suggests to me that her function in Gloranthan society is provide a source of fertility. Since there are already fertility spells for crops and livestock, it would seem that the fertility Uleria provides is more generalized, or perhaps restricted to procreation.
Either way, this helps explain why her worship survives, and perhaps even thrives, in a culture where marriage and divorce laws are more flexible than those in most of the RW parallels. Visiting Uleria is not committing fornication or adultery; it's closer to a visit to a fertility specialist or a couples counselor than a visit to a prostitute. So it's socially accepted for a married person to employ Ulerian services than it would be for an RW married person to employ a prostitute. It doesn't qualify as grounds for divorce, and any children born to the wife as a result are considered the married couple's legitimate children. Children born to a Ulerian (assuming Uleria doesn't provide magical contraception) are probably considered sacred to Uleria and raised for her worship.
Unmarried men and women visit Uleria ostensibly to gain fertility for their crops and livestock and perhaps to attract a mate. Perhaps Ulerian fertility needs to be activated with a small ritual, raising the possibility that a regular customer could save up the fertility and release it in big bang (no pun intended).
Andrew E. Larsen
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