That last is true, but as commodities, they have distinct drawbacks! It would be normal for her dowry to be at least of comparable size to her bridewealth, so not much of a 'profit' is being made in cash terms. Politically, it's certainly an asset to be 'in demand'.
> While the social and technological systems are very different, there may be
> Heortling analogies in rites to temples, pilgrimage paths, and their
> attendant ceremonies. If real world analogies hold, then even in a strongly
> patrilineal Heortling clan, many rights, rites and gifts will be passed
> along matrilineal lines.
I think this is definitely so, which is one reason I think that such clans are often _not_ strictly exogamous, since matrilineal and bilateral relationships are less 'politically messy' if they're in any case local. Though admittedly, exogamy is generally not exactly _very_ non-local, it's just churning the same, tired old genetic material <g> through a slightly wider circle, and therefore matrilineages can 'find their way back' to where they started off quite easily with a generation or three.
One reason I assumed that endogamous marriage is commonplace in KoDP (and that era generally) is that to start with, there are no tribes. Therefore there's no 'natural' sources of wives (or E/u-husbands), and every exogamous marriage is a special case legal wrangle unto itself, which is still more or less still true if you marry outside your tribe. (Somewhat ameliorated by city Rings, kingdoms, and Lunar invasions (oops!) and such like new-fangled pieces of nonsense.)
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