Don't overlook the fact that the Esrolian ruling class has a far greater hold over the underclass than the Russian nobility ever had - sex. Especially if we posit large numbers of Esrolian men formed into bachelor regiments, with the hope of marriage held out to them as a reward given for good behaviour.
These men have been brought up to regard such a system as normal and good for society - and have been raised on stories of the disasters that happen in foreign lands or in the past, when men were allowed to rule. If anything, I think they'd feel particularly bitter anger and resentment at men who tried to subvert or overthrow the system, because sexual jealousy would be mixed in with their feelings - "these men are cheating, trying to get themselves a wife without working for it or deserving it. Why should they get what I can't?"
> Is any male contempt diffusively aimed at local oppressive
>matriarchal institutions, rather than the system, the Queens and the =
Earth
>Goddess as a whole?=20
Isn't that they way it almost always works, in any society? You can be angry at the boss who bullies you, but being angry at the whole structure of society is like raging against the sun in the sky. It's pointless. (Until somebody like Lenin or Orlanth comes along, at any rate ;-) )
>Gloranthan religion also enters into the
>fray; the opportunity for the development of 'outside' masculine cults
>within the army (or the perversion of the 'consortial' cults), whether
>secret, condoned or perhaps promoted, is as much a factor as giving the
>chaps weapons.
Sure - but I'd say that's a matter for the Hero Wars. Russian peasants lived under Tsarist autocracy for 400 years, then new ideas spread among them and they rose up in revolution. The same might well happen in Esrolia - but it's going to be a world-changing event, and doesn't imply that the culture can't have been stable for many centuries before then.
Remember, you need *two* thngs for revolution (as opposed to a mere localised revolt against a particular ruler or specific law):
A conscious awareness of being oppressed, that's one - but you also need a conviction that there *is* a better way, that you can make the world a better place, that the inevitable hardship, death and misery that a revolution entails will be worth it in the end. You need an Idea; you need a dream.
Who will bring the dream to the men of Esrolia?
Stephen
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