>In a standard Heortling marriage where the wife
>joins her husbands clan, to what extent are the wife's family kin?
I guess I'll jump in here with my two clacks and a greasy bolg.
Now there's a surprise. :)
I'll give you two answers: the analytical and the genre/in-game. They're really one. (Roll against 'Creeping Lunarisms').
The long boring analytical bit first:
BACKGROUND As in most human societies, Heortling kinship isn't really about genealogy and biological relationships - its a fundamental organising principle for the entire social universe. Kinship is classification, it orders everything. Kinship dictates the rules of ownership and distribution of resources, rights to use land, relationships with outsiders, clan defence, the workings of justice, and the ownership of certain religious ceremonies. It measures and orders social distance, identifying a continuum from closest blood kin to fellow clansfolk, close allies, distant allies, other Orlanthi, strangers and non humans (Lunars, Praxians, Grazer scum etc.)
In Heortling society, *everything* is filtered through the ideology and practice of kinship. While based upon biology and descent, it is far bigger than either, and if biology or descent get in the way they will be ignored, distorted or gratuitously fictionalised.
Kinship serves the clan well in times of migration and hardship, and is adaptable in placing outsiders within its web whenever necessary.
Heortling kinship is both flexible and resilient, and this very flexibility can make generalisation difficult. Relationships and kinship systems vary from clan to clan and situation to situation.
The logic of kinship can sometimes work in reverse. The skalds will often discover links of kinship to new friends and allies - they were kin all along! These links may be tenuous or even fictive, but they are used to forge strong and enduring bonds. The rationale is: if someone is important to me, then they *must* be kin. If no link is obvious, then we'll invent one (sorry, 'discover' one), fit the person into a convenient though general category 'he's a close cousin, we share descent from a common great great grandfather/ancestral hero/Heort himself', or adopt the person into the clan in some informal or formal way.
Because it is so central to everything, I imagine that Heortling kinship terminology will be complex and precise in its language, reflecting shades of 'relationship' (really social importance) that mere English glosses can't capture, and that are entirely unnecessary to capture for game purposes. So there will be probably be several dozen words for shades of second cousin, a precise word for 'Father's father's brothers' son's son' or Father's sister's daughter's husband, as well as supporting and cross-reference terms for 'belonging to the same bloodline', 'not really related, but as valuable to me as my father's brother's son' (though in fact, even if not related, such a person will usually be called 'father's brother's son') and 'used to be a close relative by marriage but after the divorce they're not important to me'. And in patrilineal clans, the terminology will sharply differentiate between father's kin (very important) and mother's kin (generally less important, though this varies depending on the total number of cross clan marriage links, the degree of interaction between the two clans, their distance, cultic and political affiliations, general reputation, and of course on personal bonds that are build upon those of marriage).
KINSHIP BY MARRIAGE Now in general terms, and speaking for now from a male perspective, the relative value of affines (kin by marriage) is less than those of consanguines (kin by blood). Heortling patrilineal kinship encourages brothers and cousins to work together and build close bonds - which is also how steads and clans work in economic terms. Your blood is your clan, dependent, reliable, and you share in mutual moral obligation, legal identity, and an ethos of forced reciprocity ('you *have* to share just about everything' - usually disguised as ' we *want* to share just about everything'.). Blood bonds are dependable, and when its not its just too bad to talk about - kinstrife.
Affines are another matter. You exchange gifts, slap each other on the back, genuinely value the flow of men and women between you, but other things can be highly variable. The Heortlings practice seven different types of marriage, reflecting different circumstances and differences in status between a bride and groom or their families. Marriage is seen as equally a bonding between individuals and an agreement between clans. While fidelity is a recognised virtue, divorce is not uncommon, and may be initiated by either party.
So if its a year marriage, affines will be of little value whatsoever. In fact I suspect year marriages are often little more than labour agreements. And if divorce occurs in any marriage, the bonds can disappear - divorce is never entirely pretty, but we don't need the Heortlings to tell us that.
Interestingly, if your clan is suddenly marrying lots of women from the Black Oaks, it may be (from the perspective of clan bonds) a sign that the Black Oaks are recent or potential enemies, or rivals, or political players that need to bought onside. You may not like them very much, which is *why* you're marrying them. Marriage is a way of bringing people closer to your clan. That's one of the reasons women have such a strong role as peaceweavers.
But if you've been exchanging marriage partners with say the White Bear Tresdarnii for generations, then your affines will be close, dependable, will have shared many adventures, and will be valued as very close kinsfolk.
(But of course, if until now most of your marriages were with the White Bears, and suddenly you have to marry most of your young with the Black Oaks, then your longtime bonds with the White Bears are going to suffer. Marriage is politics. Hence campaigns.)
So its difficult to generalise, but I think the on-the-ground game situations will be pretty intuitive.
A WIFE'S IDENTITY
>In a strict legal sense the wife is now part of her husband's
>bloodline and shares their property but I find it difficult to
>believe that she is no longer treated as kin by her parents and
>siblings.
I don't think the sources have ever suggested that a woman surrender her birth identity, and its certainly not the way I've ever played it. A wife has two clan identities, that of her birth clan and that of her husband's clan, though their relative importance changes over time. 'All' women experience this, it is a universal of Heortling life. (Obvious exceptions here: matrilineal or cognatic clans, overwife marriages, cultic complications, uxorilocal residence for whatever reason...).
Of course, its not necessarily easy. When a woman first marries, her status can suddenly change from dadda's favourite daughter to being the junior wife at a strange communal hearth, where she will have to work hard to prove herself and win the trust of her husband's kin. Its probably not until the birth of her first son that she is completely accepted into her new clan. Of course, it will be much easier in situations where two clans regularly marry: the woman will know many of the other wives, and they may indeed be cousins or sisters. (In fact, I suspect brothers marrying sisters will be relatively common for just this reason).
The bonds of clan identity are primarily emotional, and they will endure. Likewise, a woman's birth clan will continue to have an emotional (not to mention economic) investment in her, and marriage rituals and ceremonies don't end with the wedding or even with the birth of the first child. Exchanges continue.
As a woman gives birth to children who have her husband's clan identity, as as she grows in power, seniority and respect within her new clan, then obviously her sense of identity becomes much more closely identified with her marriage clan. By the time her own children seek a marriage match, she will bargain just as hard, and look to the clan interest, as any in-born male. But she will *always* remain part of the clan of her birth.
Heortling women from patrilineal clans generally have dual clan identities. In the matrilineal clans, Heortling men will have dual identities.
(However, Matrilineal clans are far more than just mirrors of patrilineal clans. The social roles of husbands and the nature of marriage itself is different in those clans. Brother-sister bonds are more important than husband-wife bonds, marriage is less a clan agreement and divorce is much more common. That's because the clan interests of a man (who is still a typical Heortling male) lie with his sister's children rather than his own. His sister's children share his own clan identity, his own children belong to the clan of his wife. Now **there's** some game potential....) (That incidentally, is why I think things like stead burnings, a relative staple of the Icelandic sagas, are much more uncommon in Sartar. The Icelanders didn't have clans. Burn down a communal Sartarite stead, and you're risking death or injury to women from maybe three or four other clans as well as those of your enemy. Which means that when the smoke clears, you have four or five clans as your enemy, not just one. A dumb move, even to your average Finovani. Sartarite revenge and atrocities are closely targeted. Indiscriminate violence has **bad** consequences.)
>On the other hand how far does this go? is a man also >kin to his sister-in-law's husband from a different clan?
If the clans swap marriage partners regularly, then the WZH (wife's sister's husband) may well be of the husband's own clan.
If the clans don't, then the WZH may well be of a third clan. A useful excuse for an introduction, but not much else.
Generally, this sort of extended affinal kin link isn't important.
IN GAME ANSWER Much shorter. :)
"Does a father cease to love his daughter because she has moved to another tula? Does a mother cease to love her daughter because she dwells in another clan? Does a sister cease to care and console her brothers, though they be apart, or brothers cease to protect and defend their sister, though she dwell in another man's lodge?"
To all of these, NO!
Did I write all that? There goes lunch...
John
End of Glorantha Digest, Vol 11, Issue 151
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