Right - this is what I was getting at with my comment to Bruce. My view is that the difficulty, if there is one, lies in applying this to a game - it is easy to conflate the aspirations with the actual, just because there's a lot to remember. I had been getting the notion from here that they were one and the same, but probably because of not reading the 'aspirational' vs. 'actual' pointers.
So I am a little relieved at your essay John. One relevant feature to me of Heortling society are that the non-norm is specifically included - I suppose every society would have its parallels. Say British eccentricity. Another is that societal rules might be backed up by tangible magical effects - I would tend to downplay the traceable connection between them though, else a lot of the spice goes.
> Heortling marriage is primarily a corporate alliance and contract
between two groups of people (clans)...
So, there's the crunch where I was fumbling towards saying that incestual taboos don't ring true to me at this scale so the out-of - clan thing wouldn't make sense for a homosexual relationship. I can easily imagine a whole pile of homosexual or bisexual folk married just like anyone else - what do you do when you grow up? You get married. You like other men/women? What's that got to do with it?
I think the interesting situation would be where some homosexual union is made between clans. If there is no formal structure to do so, it could occur informally and just be a feature of the landscape.
> A tubmasher/stickpicker bonding between Braggi Bentbow and Nalda
Mudshins will pay less attention to the niceties of dowry, alliance
and even *gasp* kinship prohibitions than the peacemaking bond
between Kierston the clan lawspeaker and Hargan ElmalThane, war
leader and first son of the Balkoth chieftain.
Yep. On this note, I was listening to the Lady and the Unicorn by Tracey Chevalier in the car. 15th C Brussels - the woad dyers, because they reek of sheep's piss, find it hard to get marriages sorted and end up marrying their cousins. In DP, I imagine all sorts of repetitions of unions between families down the ages - just about only first cousins, ignore the fact the other is also their grandfather's niece etc - heck, my wife's family has this.
> 'Year-marriage' can be very informal, and in fact can be little
more than a labour contract involving sexual favours. I suspect
that 'year-married' is a term used to describe almost any
relationship that is out of the ordinary.
Living together for a year or so is, to my wife, "marriage".
Cheers John and the other greybeards, of whatever gender (or sexual disposition :)).
Sam.
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