Marriage
Entries
Question: How does someone marrying outside his or her House affect inheritance?
Suppose, for instance, that the second-eldest Baker House member in Valardin gets married off to the Charlie House in Redrain. Then the duke of Baker and eldest Baker House son get hit by a cart and die. Does the second-eldest inherit? Or is he out of the line of succession because of the marriage?
Put differently, does marriage out of a House alone put someone out of the line of succession? Or is succession effects of marriage something (if it happens at all) that is separately negotiated with the marriage?
Answer: Here's a case where the traditional autonomy granted to heads of houses is a headache for the Compact as a whole.
Traditionally, a line of succession is what the head of house specifically wills it to be, with an heir being declared, and some defining it three or four places down (and some changing it based on whim, with a few intentionally playing heirs off one another). This, of course, can create ambiguous situations that lead to potentially violent conflicts, and then it typically falls to that head of house's liege to make the call, or the highlord of the region, and that leads to traditional lines of succession.
Typically, one that marries out is considered lower in the line than anyone with equal proximity. Typically primogeniture goes in order of- eldest to youngest direct children, eldest to youngest grandchildren (and in theory, straight down in direct line, with a couple cases of great-grand children inheriting), then up to nephews/nieces, then at second cousins it would be considered equal proximity including up generations (brothers/sisters, uncles, etc). Marrying out puts someone traditionally at the bottom of the same proximity, so if someone had 4 kids, the ones married out would be treated as the youngest. Children -> Grandchildren -> First Cousins of Children -> everyone else. The vagueness after nieces/nephews is intentional, as the some elements of arguing by merit creeped in with that many potential claimants.
Question: Q: I understand from the news files that marriage among the nobility is basically a business/political contract (and one taken very seriously), and love generally has little to do with. However, I'm curious about what cultural role love plays in noble marriages, if any. Is it a case where it's a polite fiction that marriages are love (even if they generally aren't) and people are expected to pretend they're in love with their spouse? Will protestations of love help sell an unpopular match? Or is there scorn for letting such a think as fickle emotion compromise the very serious duty of contracts between houses? Or something in between--it's nice if you love the person you're marrying, but no one considers it a requirement?
Answer: Generally speaking, culturally Limerance is more the god of fidelity than of love, and that's an important distinction, in so much that duty and obligation weighs much more heavily than romantic ideals. This is a large part why culturally and religiously noble marriages are treated differently, since they have different bonds of fidelity and obligation between families as well as individuals, meaning that in many ways the expectation for spouses to keep their word to one another has a greater weight culturally than the expectation of any love between them. Since ultimately, honoring those vows about fidelity is much more significant than any nice-but-not-required romantic love, which unfortunately does result in a lot of unhappy marriages. Commoners, on the other hand, have no expectation of creating an alliance or bringing families together, even in the cases of powerful merchant houses or the like, so it's much more casual and love there is expected.
Question: Q) While the theme doc says that marriage is more informal and common law amongst commoners, it's a more formal practice amongst nobility. Is there a formal ceremony involved in this? Is it religious or contractual? Do these ceremonies differ from faction to faction?
Answer: Vastly more formal. Commoners have freedom to marry whoever, whenever they want in regards to other commoners. Nobles very much do not if they want to stay nobles. Any match has to be approved both by their own head of house, and further any match has to be approved by the Faith and formally recognized in a marriage ceremony to be seen as valid, and for children from the bond to be considered legitimate. This means that the Faith essentially does have veto power over noble marriages (see Fawkuhl's proclamation about marriages not being performed for a time), and with some legates massive bribery to block or approve marriages was not uncommon. Religious and contractual both, and ceremonies do have regional variance, but all blessed by the Faith. Even shamanistic houses still have to have faith approval to be considered valid by the rest of the Compact.
Question: Q: 1) Thematically, does the Faith care about formalizing commoner marriages? Practically, can they just move in and say 'hey, married' or would they be expected to involve a priest?
A: Added clarification in 'help marriage'. Not particularly and yes, as noted back in 'help marital_status' written at the start of alpha, commoner marriages are essentially common law. They can declare how they want and involve a priest later or not at all.
Q: 2) When nobles are getting married, who do they contact to get the Faith's blessing, and who would they contact in their absence?
A: Local seraph is standard, and up to any godsworn that could then ask the archlector of limerance or anyone that works with him, or a legate, or then the Dominus.
Q: 3) How involved is the Faith in keeping the marriage status quo? I.E, are they a common obstacle for twue love stories between nobles/commoners?
A: The Faith of the Pantheon IS the status quo. Nobles wanting to follow their heart should prove it by giving up their title and marrying the commoner, it's honorable to do so if they aren't going to live up to their noble commitments.
Question: Q: Hi. I'd asked on Info channel about the existence of (gender/sex neutral) dowries and whether they would be paid to the house gaining a new member or to the house losing a member. Hellfrog said that dowries really didn't exist. My understanding is that trade pacts and agreements for military support (please don't kill any Archdukes named Ferdinand) were more along the lines of what to expect when allying two houses via the bonds of marriage. What are reasonable requests/arrangements along these lines when negotiating marital contracts?
Q:In conjunction with Sophie's question, what do noble marriage contracts typically look like? Would there be great differences between a contract between a non-landed and landed noble contract? What about a High Lord contract vs. other noble contracts? Additionally, I know the theme files talk about non-monogamy clauses if agreed upon by the marriage, but are there non-non-monogamy clauses if the parties intend to be monogamous (or is that just understood, if there is NOT a non-monogamy clause)?
A: Marriage pacts will mirror the interests of the houses, and 'reasonable' can be a tricky term there. By ancient tradition, titleholders aren't allowed to marry, and one of the two must abdicate and give up their claims on their birth family's holdings. For primary line marriages that stand in a direct line for inheritance (children, nieces, nephews, siblings and cousins of the titleholder), this usually represents a tremendous concession, so it tends to be the house that is 'gaining' the noble that in turn will pay for the costs of the marriage and ensuing celebration (which for great houses, could run into the hundreds of thousands of silver easily, and such marriage celebrations are usually a display of strength and grandeur). For someone that's not a claimant, that tends to be much less of a factor, and they tend to be a dryer negotiation with the two houses discussing what military obligations they should have to one another, often with a contract specifying how many sworn swords they may offer in the event of being threatened, and 'with all our power' being a common phrase to mean that if one house is threatened, they are all in. Trade agreements tend to be sweeping changes that might last generations, like the abolition of tariffs, tax incentives for their own merchants doing business in X, military agreements on who might watch over what caravans and where, and an awful lot of extremely dry details I don't want to go into great length about since very, very, very few players would enjoy discussing them. This will be very relevant when Dominion is in, but not so much now, as trade will very much be A Thing, and those will have a not insignificant relevance on the prosperity of houses, and directing trade towards an ally might make another house salty when they see their incomes drop by someone else being favored. And that's largely the tricky thing with anytime it's very abstracted and handwaved, in the current state, in that it is easy to say what people gain, but very very difficult to show the ramifications of it in what might produce unintentional consequences on others, in a way that makes the choices more difficult rather than pro forma.
As for contracts themselves, who is marrying into which house is common, and also if any of the children are being raised as wards of the other family- and would in effect be members of the other house. It can be assumed marriages allow lovers (but never children by them, with safe, extremely reliable contraception being a thing thematically), ONLY somewhere between the way RL noble marriages worked for men, and the way 'modern' marraiges 'allow' them. FOr example, if you cheat on your spouse you are probably not going to be stoned to death or immediately divorced, but they certainly don't have to like it. More, it is just accepted that discreet dalliances are bound to happen in loveless unions -- unless otherwise specified with phrases like 'And none shall come between us in our hearts' or other similar flowery phrases that mean they must be monogamous. Breaking those is an extremely big deal, since if someone does break a marriage vow, the injured party and/or the Faith of the Pantheon is free to declare the marriage pact null and void, completely invalidating any of those trade agreements, military alliances, etc. More common is the guilty party being dennobled, the guilty party's family making some kind of concession, and the pact continues on. Of course, more often than not, 'guilt' is a matter of debate, and this leads to wars if they refuse arbitration by the Crown or Faith. It should be noted that marriage contracts stipulations about monogamy must be equal- it must be closed and monogamous for both parties by contract, or assumed to be handled privately in the case of lovers for both parties, if no such thing is stipulated. Often marriage contracts will specifically outline what would follow if they divorce, to try to avoid that kind of messiness, as the Arxian equivalent of a prenuptial agreement. These are uncommon, as most families would distrust it and see it as casting doubt on the fidelity of the other party, which is a pretty big insult- remember that while the culture is extremely sexually permissive and progression, what replaces most of the hardline beliefs is a deep religious conviction around -fidelity-, so keeping word is a really, really, really big deal. Someone that's declared faithless in effect doesn't have a claim to the loyalty of all those sworn to them, which is what Fawkuhl tried to do unsuccessfully with the highlords he excommunicated.
Noble Same-Sex Marriage Inheritance
Question: Since different questions on this topic have come up at various times, I feel like it might be worth putting down answers in a lasting location. How common or rare is same-sex marriage allowed to happen in the nobility? From the gender help file, it sounds like it would be less common, as most nobles are going to face pressure to marry in a babymaking-compatible manner despite their sexuality or gender identity. But it's also been indicated that noble same-sex marriage isn't completely unheard of, so what situations would it be more commonly allowed in? More likely for nobles farther away from the line of inheritance? Special boons for particular service? In the cases of same-sex marriage in the nobility, how are children handled in the line of inheritance? Are any children produced by one of the pair automatically considered bastards with the chance to be legitimized? Do some couples make specific arrangements in their marital contracts? What would the "automatic" assumption/status of a child born to one of them be, and what would the potential be by way of arrangement?
And, as an addendum, in real life it was not uncommon to nominate a successor rather than explicitly having them be of your blood. Is that option one that nobles pursue with any frequency here? Would a same-sex marriage with a chosen heir be the accepted compromise.
Answer: Any love matches are rare, the closer someone is to direct inheritance of the noble holding the rarer it is. This includes any match that cannot result in natural born offspring between the two partners for any reason, noble-commoner, abdication to marry someone of far lower station, same sex marriages, known sterility. As far as nobility is concerned, it's a contract between two houses that result in children to solidify their bonds, with a tremendous amount of emphasis on natural born, legitimate children between two of them as guarantees of the ties between the houses. Homophobia isn't particular thematic, but callous indifference to people's actual desires often is, with many just expecting nobles to marry and then have lovers outside the marriage with varying degrees of openness or discretion.
Marrying someone that cannot result in children and/or is not about solidifying an alliance for the family is seen by different groups in different ways. It's seen as a selfish abrogation of duty by traditionalists, reckless or foolish by moderates, understandable and sympathetic by progressives, and romanticized and beloved by the commons. Generally speaking, it's expected of someone going into a love match to give up claims on inheritance for nobility, as they are putting aside duty for their heart. But not always.
Heads of house can choose heirs and appoint a successor not directly over their body, and it has happened. Legitimized bastards, adoptees, children further down the line because of issues with the first born. These are rare, however, because of concerns of it being challenged after the death, which is not at all rare, and even open minded and progressive peers of the realm are extremely concerned about non-standard succession because of the risk of being drawn into a potential succession crises. On the other hand, this really only applies to peers directly in the line of succession. A distant cousin is still going to be a noble, but they don't truly have heirs, since it is extremely unlikely they'll ever have their own direct domain to pass down. The social pushback they receive is considerably less, but there's still the standard disapproval of the peerage for ennobling anyone through adoption.
Tl;dr, it really only matters a lot for heirs expected to inherit domains, and it's usually taken as a given they'll pass it over if they marry for love. If they don't, could expect fights. Otherwise, there is societal disapproval depending on the circumstances, sometimes severe enough that nobility renounce their family and go commoner, but usually not so bad.
Question: Are Noble marriages with only a shaman ceremony acknowledged as lawful and right in the Compact? I thought by entry into the Compact the shaman inclined Houses had to give the appearance of the Faith including marriages.
Answer: In most of the Compact, part of the coming to age ritual of being recognized as an adult (typically on an 18th birthday), is taking a vow of fealty to their liege. For any Abandoned becoming a prodigal, it's also a vow of fealty. These are all given before Limerance, and it is always assumed that anyone in the Compact recognizes the primacy of the Faith of the Pantheon- or at least the sanctity of those vows. Similarly, for a marriage to be considered valid it does have to be recognized by the Faith, but in practice, this is often just a matter of informing the local seraph of a parish that a marriage occured, or individuals are living as married. So for the Northlands, for a noble marriage, this could be politely informing the local seraph that such a marriage occured and was recognized by Limerance, even if the wedding was performed entirely with shamanistic rites, as it would be implicitly understood that any vows given (and any marriage contracts) would be undertaken under the eyes of Limerance. Still, even in the Northlands, nobles marriages without a seraph present are rare, simply because it can create a situation where there is no theoretically impartial eyewitness to the precise terms of a marital contract, and inviting the possibly of a dispute of terms down the line, and putting the noble houses in a situation where the Faith could decide against them (particularly if they felt slighted by the lack of inclusion).
It is often customary for important contracts to be recognized by a local seraph to be considered binding, but as commoner marriages involve no contract between houses, it's not considered pressing and more of a polite formality to inform a seraph and liege of any change in status. Love matches between nobles are considered much the same as commoner marriages (which adds to some noble disapproval of them), and some powerful commoner merchant family marriages intentionally mimic noble marriage contracts to put on airs of importance (and are in turn scorned by nobility). Ultimately, how much seraph involvement usually is taken as a societal sign of how important the marriage actually is, which has contributed to the Northlands being taken less seriously by the rest of the Compact. But as long as a local seraph knows that a shamanistic wedding has taken place and there's no overwhelming reason to object (ie, polygamy, forced marriage, etc), then it is recognized as legitimate.
Answer: Marriages between commoners are the equivalent of common law, with either partner able to end it by simply stating that the marriage is over at their will. Similarly, they do not need to consult with anyone to declare themselves married, and can simply inform a local seraph or lord that it has transpired to be noted for the public record, but marriage ceremonies performed by a godsworn is more common.
In both commoner and noble marriages, either the bride or groom will be 'marrying in' to the other's family, but there is no gender distinction here. Typically the family seen as 'gaining' a family member will be seen as gaining significantly in the match, with the house gaining a family member often covering wedding expenses, and for noble marriages, being seen as a major chip in marriage negotiations, with it considered a major concession that a family member is going to another house, and likely to expect treaty concessions in turn with land grants, favorable diplomatic and trade partnerships, expectations that some of the children will be wards of the former family, or the like.
For noble marriages, any match between nobles has implications before Limerance, and so requires at least the consent of the faith. For a 'love match' without any formal treaty, this requires the approval of the heads of each household and at least a local seraph. For any marriage pact that creates a formal treaty between two houses, this is theoretically approved of by the Archlector of Limerance (or his or her godsworn staff), or any legate, or the Dominus. Marriages involving a highlord tend to be seen by the dominus or one of the legates. Nobles that elope do not have their marriages recognized as legitimate in the eyes of the Faith until they have formal approval by the Faith.
It's rare for any marriage to not be approved, and theoretically it exists as a safeguard against marriage under duress, which is forbidden by the Faith of the Pantheon, to be certain that a spouse agrees to the marriage under their own free will. Of course, since heads of house can dennoble a family member that thwarts them, consent can be murky if someone is facing the threat of losing their title unless they consent to a marriage. Similarly, nobles wishing to marry commoners are typically expected to give up their noble title as a sign of commitment and join the commoner's family, unless the commoner passes a tremendously high bar to be worthy of ennoblement.