Uleria
What strikes me is that Uleria is the power of Free Love. I get the impression that in Ernalda and Orlanth's views, Love is just the tool to achieve harmony and fertility. They teach magic so that Love be used properly for that purpose, but if your husband/wife ain't a good match for you, you better give up. Uleria's power of Love is different in a sense that Uleria's magic will allow you to achieve harmony and fertility, and Life, - -anyway-. Doesn't it work in Zoria?
Ernalda and Orlanth have to unite each other so as to get to that achievement. Uleria can argue that she's the power between both. She's the power that binds people together. And a very important part of that power is Sex. That's why Ulerians have all that sex-improving magic. Sex is necessary for the world to hold together. Without sex the world will fall apart. By performing their sacred duty, Ulerians help to the cohesion of the world. When people are sexually happy, everything goes better. They're not prostitutes. It's normal that you give offerings to her. Can you get the sort of wind you need if you don't sacrifice regularly? In other societies, husbands and wifes will make offerings to Uleria so that they get the sort of sex they need more often, and be happier. It works very well in Zoria.
Uleria has no prejudices. Her love is for everyone and binds everyone except chaos that has to rely on debased forms of sex which have no place in Uleria's cosmic scheme. But there's no way a Heortling women has sex with a foreigner. That's going to spoil her fertility. Uleria says no, it's not! It's not the choice of your husband that makes fertility and harmony, it's Love!
Well, maybe they're wrong. Maybe those are Celestial Court ideals that don't work very well since Time began with that intricate and ritualized web of new relationships. But it seems to work in Zoria.
Woman equality in the Lunar Empire
Peter Larsen
>Is there more equality in inheritance laws, have the Carmanian and Dara
>Happan institututional barriars begun to break under the overwhelming
>example of the Goddess?
So far the Lunar policy has been to maintain local institutions so that women trying to socially ascend in the Dara Happan or Carmanian societies have few or no chances to be successful. Woman may enjoy Lunar equality if they become Lunar citizens and adopt the Lunar religion. Outside the Lunar religion it can't work because that's not in their myths. IMO.
>How do the men in the Empire feel about this?
I suppose the Lunar philosophy trains them to accept this. Those who don't follow the Lunar philosophy are bitter, but they have to accept Sedenya anyway, because She proves that She's right.
>Have the Lunars in Tarsh and other Orlanthi lands suppressed Orlanth just
>because he's an opponent of the Goddess or because Ernalda is easier to
>work with, woman to woman (after all the Empire didn't conquer Tarsh,
>HonEel "romanced" them (and I mean the Earth Goddesses, not the kings))?
Yelm and the Red Goddess have mythological reasons to cast down the rebel. He can't be healed, or doesn't want to, because he's the originator of the wrongs. Ernalda tried to moderate his violence, Waiting for him to be healed, but he rejected her. Now she's got her place among the Lunar deities along with her family, and Orlanth is excluded. Ungrateful and jealous, he won't come back to beg her. The men in Tarsh don't want to follow him anymore, because they cannot follow their old god now that he revealed his true nature. They're happy that women enjoy equality now, aren't you?
>I don't think there's a "female dominance" conspiracy
>in the Empire, but I think the Lunars, as one of the only Goddess-led and
>woman-affirming cultures in Glorantha, might have an easier time with Earth
>and Darkness groups than Air and Fire.
Well it depends on the view that other cultures have of womanhood. Many cultures insist on the fertility aspect, even Uz. Uz males serve the women because they are the bearers of life. That's not exactly the Lunar view. Not mentioning the Chaos connection, Lunar women may do things that are really strange for Uz (be warriors...), and who say strange say dangerous. It's true that the Earth cultists are proner to welcom the Goddess's message, as they did in Esrolia and Tarsh. Her message holds a couple of Truths that are not to displease them, especially in Esrolia where the message that men's blood makes good manure is easier to pass.
Jerome
End of The Glorantha Digest V8 #343
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