Re: Marriage from David Dunham on 2000-08-22 (Glorantha Digest Vol 07)

From: David Dunham <dunham_at_pensee.com>
Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2000 07:30:57 -0700

Alex replied:
> > 1. Women would effectively be clanless, relying on their inlaws,
> > unable to bond with other women of the clan. This would especially be
> > a problem for all the various Ernalda rituals, which are often to
> > clan-specific aspects.
>
> I don't think Ernalda necessarily 'defines' clan membership in the
> same way that a Lawspeaker would, if clan membership per se were
> even the precise issue. This is a function of the appropriate
> initiation, rather than anything, more predicated upon where
> her hearth is, than who she happens to be married to.

Worshipping Ernalda is not a problem. Worshipping Ura, the protective valley spirit, could have been. Worshipping Varmand's mother, best midwife ever seen in Dragon Pass, would have been.

> > An underhusband would be a member of his birth clan, and his wife's
> > clan.
>
> Being a member of two clans simultaneously is a legal nonsense,
> IMO. Equally for men as for women. For any given purpose, you're
> one or the other, though changing this may be relatively easy,

Exactly. And the easiest way to define which clan you are at any time is by determining where you made your home. In effect, this means you are a member of the clan you marry into in a physical sense (thus marrying into in a legal sense as well).

I can think of one sense in which you are in your original clan while residing with your new one, and that's if you're mistreated by your marriage clan. Though they probably have to come up with legal fictions like declaring that you weren't properly married if your spouse was letting his kin mistreat you.

> if marriage in and of itself constitutes joining the
> - -local partner's clan (I assume that'd be the approximate
> formula?), does divorce constitute automatic removal, or 'outlawry'
> from same?

But of course! Though definitely with the quotes (or even British apostophes), as there is absolutely no obligation to kill you.

David Dunham <mailto:dunham_at_pensee.com> Glorantha/HW/RQ page: <http://www.pensee.com/dunham/glorantha.html> Imagination is more important than knowledge. -- Albert Einstein