HEORTLING MARRIAGE AND CLAN IDENTITY I'm on the move - pardon this somewhat rushed posting.
David is clearly wrong in his belief that Heortlings change their clan identification on marriage. It's a argument from silence, and it doesn't make sense. The marriage rules in KOS clearly indicate that husband and wife retain their clan identifications. The alleged problems that he claims it solves are in fact recreated on the other side of the axis if a wife (or in certain circumstances, a husband) changes clans on marriage.
If its a problem of trust - and some of David's examples seem to indicate this, then there's an age-old solution to the problem; its called ENDOGAMY. Some Orlanthi clans certainly practice endogamy, but not in Sartar. KOS is quite explicit, and the kinship and marriage arrangements reflect this: Heortling clans are EXOGAMOUS.
(As always, there may be an exception to the rule: the Kitori spring to mind as a group few outsiders would wish to intermarry with. They may be endogamous, and probably matrifocal as well).
Offhand, I can't think of a single exogamous RW tribal grouping where women change their clan ID on marriage, even in situations where the status of women is much lower than it is among the Heortlings. I could believe it of the Darra Happans, but their descent corporations are no longer tribal.
Real humans have been marrying and moving to other clans while retaining their clan identity for tens of thousands of years, and despite David's objections (and obviously some real tensions) it works quite well.
Marriage is as much a union of two corporate groups as a union of individuals. Clans negotiate the exchange, and suddenly abrogating your clan identity makes a mockery of the entire system. Bridewealth and dowry reflect the interrelations of two clans - and these are both Heortling customs.
Your clan identification is something very basic and profound: its a core of your identity and it includes strong ritual and magical links to your tula and to your ancestors. Changing clans is not like changing surnames.
Now the kinship system in Report on the Orlanthi is not without its difficulties and self-contradictions - it takes bits and pieces of different marriage systems - from highly prescriptive direct exchanges to relatively de-tribalised marriages of individual choice - without describing hows these odd bits and pieces form a coherent system. There is a lot of room for variation from tribe to tribe. But on the essentials of the basic system its very clear - patrilineal, patrilocal, descent-groups based on clan identity with some room for cognatic identification.
Some of the confusion may stem from not having a clear distinction between a descent group and a kinship group.
A Heortling clan is not a kinship group: its a patrilineal *descent* group. Your clan is defined by your ancestors, it connects a limited class of your relatives, and it is absolute. Clan identity is clear, and fixed: you were born Tresdarnii, you were initiated Tovtaros-Tresdarnii, your clan tattoos are Tresdarnii, you will remain Tresdarnii even if you marry and move to Orlarnii lands and raise your children as Orlarnii. You either are or are not a member of a particular clan.
Your *kinship* group however is different from individual to individual. It varies with respect to ego, and it is bilateral because it includes both consanguines (your relatives by birth - your clan) *and* affines (your relatives by marriage - your in-laws). The Heortling kinship system emphasises close cooperation between brothers: take this and the fact that divorce is relatively common / marriages sometimes of fixed duration and you will see that links of affinal kinship are relatively weak. Changing clans on marriage makes no sense at all.
I'm on the road at the moment: I'll respond to David's original post in detail when I return home early next week, and explore his cited problems.
Cheers
John
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