Re:The great Marriage debate

From: Andrew Larsen <aelarsen_at_facstaff.wisc.edu>
Date: Wed, 06 Sep 2000 18:00:16 -0500


> From: Kmnellist_at_aol.com
> Subject: Snooty
>
> In a message dated 9/5/00 7:46:13PM, you write:
> John H
> << > marriage is as much an alliance of clans as a
>> bond between individuals.

> David D
> We agree here, but...>>
>
> The whole concept of "alliance of clans" really needs the married couple to
> retain their clan identity, otherwise it is just one person leaving one clan
> and joining another, albeit with both clans approval.

    Not really. In early medieval society (specifically among Germanic people) marriaged functioned just this way. The wife was expected to be a 'peace weaver', bringing together her old family and her new family. Several great works of literature from this period turn on the question of what happens to a woman when her birth family and her marriage family get into a feud--which ties take precidence for her?

    As sort of an aside, I've used the whole issue of marriage to considerable effect in my Sartar campaign. The clan's healer was engaged to marry a thane from another clan. Had the marriage gone through, one clan would have lost one of its two healers. The other healer, who was a wandering PC type, came under considerable pressure to give up wandering because otherwise the village would be left without a healer. Somewhat later on, the NPC healer was repudiated on the grounds that she wasn't a virgin (for reasons I won't go into), which escalated tensions between the two clans. The PC healer seriously thought about offering herself to the thane in marriage as a way to heal the rift between the two clans. The storyline wouldn't have worked as well without the exogamy issue.

Andrew E. Larsen


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