>From: Alex Ferguson <abf_at_cs.ucc.ie>
>I'll restate my question (since it didn't get answered). Is sex obtained
>"by fear or favour" open to accusations of actual rape, or of any accusation
>of improper, immoral, illegal, or "unHeortling" conduct?
Assuming Heortlings are human, then obviously yes. How seriously such allegations are taken and how likely they are to be made will depend on the individuals involved. It will also depend on how influential cults like Babester Gor are within the clan.
>I don't understand this comment. In all your options you've _assumed_
>that the thrall is freed. Are you saying it's a viable option not to
>do so, after all?
If a thrall will be freed after giving birth to the child of a freeman, that's a hell of an incentive for her to have sex with him - so much so that the clan will have to keep replenishing the stock every couple of generations.
>(Incidentally, the back-story here is that the "thralls" were captured
>by the individual concerned in raids -- so there's a degree of
>"ambiguity" at work, potentially, about whether this was really a
>case of (I nearly said wife-taking) "bed-mate capturing", rather than
>thralldom per se.)
If her brother turns up with some of his mates, I would expect a charge of rape which would probably be dropped for her freedom, marriage, a suitable bride price and no dowery.
At the other extreme, a thrall with no one to support her would probably accept what happened with little more than a few complaints to her peers.
This reminds me of the Viking tale where a captured Irish princess was beded by her captor - she waited until he was asleep before killing him with his own dagger. After that no one dared touch her without her consent.
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