Re: Heortling hitches.

From: Donald R. Oddy <donald_at_grove.demon.co.uk>
Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 01:23:08 GMT



>
>From: Alex Ferguson <abf_at_cs.ucc.ie>

>Now, on a more (in)delicate matter... Let's suppose a clan has a
>tradition of keeping thralls. (I know, boo, hiss.) What's the legal
>position of having "relations" (in the Clinton sense) with non-free
>persons? What if one fathers a child on a thrall -- does one have
>a moral or legal responsiblility to raise the mother from thralldom?
>(The implications of coercive procreation, even if only coerced
>"by implicitation", are not only a question of dubious taste, as I
>appreciate, but do in principle seem rather un-Orlanthi as regards
>their thoroughgoingly Dim view of rape.)

Apart from the fact that it happens, you mean?

I think it depends on what exactly is the status of a thrall in Orlanthi society. If they are simply property of a bloodline then it is purely a matter of how the head of the bloodline views it. If they are more like people with very limited rights then they may well be able to appeal to a clan member to champion their cause.

Whichever, a thrall is going to have great difficulty claiming rape as their word will count little against that of a freeman. There is also the issue of who thralls breed with, since an Orlanthi all thralls will be female. So I expect there will be some competition to attract a temporary mate from the unmarried (and some married) freemen. Certainly there will be a stigma attached to sexual relations with a thrall but I don't think Orlanthi would assume rape or even coercion, more behaving badly like getting drunk and throwing up at an important social event. For that reason I don't see any obligation on the father to do anything, not even to acknowledge the child although he may do and may try and persuade the owner to either sell the thrall to him or free her.

In a similar vein, what standing do thralls have in religious matters? To cut them off from Ernalda seems unreasonably harsh yet they are hardly going to be welcomed among the free women. Is there perhaps a cult of Ernalda the Thrall which gives them a place on the periphery of the rites? Given that Ernalda is described as enslaved by Yelm there is a mythic basis for such.

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