Re: OT: Mormons (was Re: Survey)
| From: | Wesley Parish <wes.parish@...> |
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| Date: | Tuesday, March 18, 2003, 10:42 |
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For what it's worth - my Tanala- and Erava-speakers live in a society where
levirate marriage is practised, but only between men who have entered into a
quasi-homosexual "blood-brotherhood" (By "quasi-homosexual" I mean sexual
intercourse is an expected part of the relationship between the two, but it
isn't expected to last into their individual marriages. If it is a regular
part of their lives after marriage, their marriages are believed to be in
trouble.)
Partially, the purpose is to maintain some form of stability between warring
clans - if two important men from warring clans enter into this sort of
arrangement, it is regarded as superseding the hostilities.
Needless to say, if one man dies, the wife of the surviving man is usually
thrust into all-out competition with the widow for the man's services.
Though the man is not allowed to distinguish between his own wife and his
blood-brother's as far as support goes, most people in that culture consider
it perfectly natural if he gives his own wife preferential treatment as far
as sexual and emotional services go. And while the women in that culture are
granted the powers of divorce, they are regarded as having acceded to the
blood-brotherhood relationship by entering into marriage - so they can't
back-pedal out of their marriage just because they find themselves sharing
their man with his blood-brother's widow.
The dead man's children are still his clan's members, it is just that his
blood-brother is given custody of them until they are mature adults.
A lot less messy than taking hostages, even if it offends the Earth people's
sense of decorum. The central character in one of my unfinished novels, is
in that style of relationship, and his blood-brother's death at the hands of
the resident aliens, nearly destroys him.
There's heaps of space for all the bloodthirsty intrigue you can wish for, in
that setting - my main character's major ancestor, Rie'ari, neatly turned
into a demi-god, is unmarried when his blood-brother, Tye'okhnos, who is
married, gets killed in a quarrel with his own kinsfolk, among them his own
sister. Who repents when it is too late, not realizing at the time that the
quarrel could go that far.
She has kept out of the limelight, so her role is known only to her
sister-in-law and few others. Rie'ari rescues her from drowning while he is
on the lam from the rest of Tye'okhnos' kinsfolk, who are on their way down
in the city's view and are blaming their troubles on Rie'ari. He gets her
pregnant, and then has to leave, still not understanding who she is.
She goes in search of him, meets up with her sister-in-law, who is delighted
to get revenge, and is only dissuaded when Rie'ari turns up and in spite of
now knowing who she is and what she did, lays down the law that she is to be
unharmed. Since she now is bearing his child. But he can't marry her, since
they are officially still at war, so she bears an illegitimate child, who
then goes on to cause all sorts of trouble in some form or another. She
fades into the background, and somehow fades into Rie'ari's bedroom when his
"wife" - Tye'okhnos' widow - gets sick and tired of him.
Like I say - plenty of room in matrimonial practices and properties for
intrigue and general bloody-mindedness. This can be reflected in the
language, of course.
Wesley Parish
On Tuesday 18 March 2003 09:15 pm, you wrote:
> Just remember that most polygamist societies require the man involved to
> care for the physical and moral needs of ALL the wives and children (in
> some, they even require that the current wives accept any new ones, or that
> all wives and children be treated equally). Trying to remember 3 different
> anniversaries, birthdays, etc., AND paying for the upkeep of three
> households, ought to make almost anyone think twice about the practice.
> Even at it's height, only a minority of LDS church members ever dared
> attempt it. Marriage to one person is hard enough.
>
> This hasn't stopped me from creating a funky plural marriage society of my
> own, of course. There, though, it's the women who have multiple husbands
> with multiple households and such. Each woman is like the head of her own
> little fiefdom, answerable only to her mother, grandmothers, etc., straight
> up to the matriarch of the clan (the clans cooperate with one another).
> People are always trying to steal husbands and stuff. Very Machiavellian
> and twisted, difficult kind of life to live. I created the society when I
> was in a bad mood, haven't thought about creating a language for them yet.
> Of course, the lower ranks of society don't have the energy or resources
> for plural marriage, so in their worldview it's the height of decadence and
> sinfulness... one advantage for the women in a plural marriage with
> multiple men is that the woman can basically award fatherhood to whichever
> male she likes best. Like I said, very twisted and probably a handy
> illustration of why it's really polygany (multiple wives) that's been
> practiced
> everywhere...
>
> Sarah Marie Parker-Allen
> lloannna@surfside.net
>
http://www.geocities.com/lloannna.geo
>
http://lloannna.blogspot.com
>
> "Being captured by the Evil Overlord is one way to learn his secret plans,
> but are innumerable other ways that are better, and they will be tried
> first." -- Rules for the Hero
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > Behalf Of Danny Wier
> >
> > marriages. Still, I'm about to get married, and I don't imagine myself
> > tossing around two or more "old ladies"...)
>
> ---
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