There's quite a lot of contact between friendly clans even if the majority of individuals don't travel. Those who do will probably spend as much time taking family messages as they do making gifts (which in themselves can be a message). I would think the majority of marriages take place between clans which share boundaries or are otherwise close in travelling time.
>I'm beginning to think that the narrow view of being tied to the tula
>doesn't work in a number of ways. It would make sense if there were
>various gatherings for ceremonies and the Heortling equivalent of
>Agricultural & Pastoral shows. Still, if a sister is married to a clan
>a fair distance away, I'm not sure how her bloodline would hear much
>from her beyond the news of the births of her children, carried by
>travellers coming from that general direction. I'd like to be wrong
>about this, so how does it work? (If the Sartarite "all" is 85%, is the
>Sartarite "most" 51%?)
Well the calendars in TR mention a tribal market day once a season which would indicate a fair proportion of each clan attending. It may well be that the majority of clan members only attend when they have a reason to go. I would think once or twice a year counts as rarely.
>> Firstly, the Heortlings have at least seven different types of
>> marriage, temporary and permanent, and involving different
>> arrangements concerning habitation and the clan identity of children.
>[...] So
>> there's lots of choice in determining what sort of marriage contract
>> best suits a couple and their clans - and Heortling marriage is as
>> much a contract between two clans as a union of two individuals.
>>
>> One of these marriage types is, as you've identified, 'Wife and
>> Underhusband', or 'Esrolian' marriage, and a wealthy woman like
>> Halorica might well choose this type. If so, then the underhusband
>> might well come to live at Halorica's birth stead, and any children
>> would belong to her clan.
>
>The reason for suggesting an "Esrolian" marriage is that that's the only
>one of the listed options in which the child becomes part of the
>mother's clan.
I suspect that the definition of "Esrolian" is that children become part of the mother's clan. Wife and Underhusband is otherwise the same. The other possibilities not covered are Husband and Wife and Husband and Underwife where the children remain in the mother's clan. In Sartar that's going to be almost unknown but in Esrolia I'm sure they occur.
>This is coming up in the more general context of trying to figure out
>what Heortling women's lives are like. Think about divorce in Heortling
>society. It's not a good thing, but it seems to be reasonably
>straightforward. Now imagine you're a woman, probably Ernaldan, and the
>defining feature of your life's work is making a home in which to raise
>children. You leave your support network to go through the ordeal of
>the youngest wife. You bear a child to your husband's bloodline, and
>gain some measure of acceptance. At any stage your husband could decide
>to divorce you, and you'd be expected to return to your birth clan and
>leave your children behind.
>
>This is not so much of an issue when things are going well, but I'm sure
>you can see the potential for unpleasantness. What does the woman have
>going for her that helps to counterbalance this?
>
>Political pressure from her birth clan is one thing. Support from other
>women might be a factor, but might not: the other women in the clan you
>married into will have their own agendas and their own clan causes to
>advance. There's quite a lot of myth supportig the notion of happy
>marriages, but the reality doesn't alway match the archetypes of Mom
>and apple pie.
In a legal sense divorce is easy but socially it's going to be much more difficult. Both for the reasons you mention and also that both parties will be seen to have failed. Conversly if one partner treats the other unreasonably everyone in the clan will know about it. So although the default is the wife returning to her birth clan I can imagine her choosing to remain and being accepted. This will depend a lot on her relationship with the other women - after all she will share the rites of Ernalda with them. They are also in the same position so they're not likely to be too sympathetic to a husband who wants a divorce unless she's antagonised them. In fact I can imagine more divorces happen because the wife can't get on with the other women in the stead than a falling out between husband and wife. Think of sharing your home with not only your mother-in-law but also your brother-in-law's wife and maybe an unmarried sister-in-law.
Heortling society is also tolerant of exceptional behaviour, so the skilled potter who doesn't like looking after children will not be blamed for leaving her children to the care of others who are happier doing that. The career woman/homemaker divide which still exists in modern western society won't be a cause of stress to Heortling marriages.
>Oh, there seems to have been some debate out there about which clan a
>married woman belongs to. Has a consensus been reached? Who gets her
>wergeld?
I haven't seen the debate but I would have thought it obvious - the clan the wife lives with and the children belong to. Weregeld is compensation for the loss of an earner.
-- Donald Oddy http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/
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