Divorce And Whispers

Question: Relating to the questions of divorce because Mailys got married. What about with Whispers? A lot of them are commoners and I understand they have to leave the Whisper House. Would marrying them be treated like they are commoner or noble? Since being a Whisper is on par with being a landless noble or something. Would they be accepted back as Whispers if they divorced? OR would they be considered too much of a scandal to be considered a 'useful' Whisper? (I couldn't think of another term besides useful) Since being a Whisper is suppose to be very prestigious and provide connections wouldn't marrying them be more of a political move than, say, marrying the Baker's kid?

Answer: For any marriage match, there's several different factors involved. The most important are what other house the marriage match for a noble is tying themselves to- in the case of any commoner, even a highly respected courtier, accomplished common-born general, or someone famous and well regarded, the answer would still be none, since they have no noble house to tie it into. Some from that perspective, many nobles would always seem any marriage to any commoner as an abrogation of their duty as a noble to further their house's ties and make them raise in esteem among peers through solid ties. This will be heavily represented in Dominion, by any noble marriages between noble houses being strongly mutually beneficial to both, based on how strong the marriage itself is. That won't exist in any noble to commoner marriage, even if the commoner brings something else to the table- strong contacts, a merchant prince's wealth, secret links to a demon lord wanting to consume existence, whatever. Those would be the ephemereals that could justify it and mitigate societal fallout, but it would still be seen as questionable in marrying a knight vassal or a whisper, however respected.

As for Whispers being accepted back into the house after divorce- doubtful, since much like godsworn or crownsworn in the sense of the king's own, they are supposed to have a complete lack of ties that could divide their loyalties, even if that can be overlooked. But someone that left the whispers once and then trying to come back would carry that baggage that would make it suspect that they could maintain that same neutrality. I don't that strong of an opinion about it though, would be HF's call and her area of expertise thematically.

Divorce Effects

Question: I am not sure if I accidentally missed anything about this topic listed but I am curious. Is divorce something common theme wise? What happens if someone who was a commoner marries a lord, becoming a lady or vise versa when they do divorce? Does the title stay? Do they lost the title do to the divorce? What if an heir was already born for the marriage before the divorce is request? How does the church look upon divorce?

Answer: For commoners, it's as simple as saying they are no longer married, and that's that. For nobles, it's a much different matter.

Nobles marrying commoners is exceedingly uncommon, because it is looked down upon as a house intentionally permitting someone to selfishly pursue their own desires at the cost to the house, and not improving their standing among the peerage- and more importantly, not creating the kind of bonds that could prevent war and bring the Compact closer together. A commoner and noble marrying is uncommon, and divorce typically is much easier in that specific case than between two nobles, though it has significant consequences. It is entirely the discretion of the head of household if the commoner would then stay with the family and remain ennobled, or if they would be removed from the family and denobled, and the latter is significantly more common. Further, for the noble, this has a lot of ramifications for their reputation and here is a related point of theme that needs to be emphasized- Arvum's very strong feelings about fidelity.

The sexual mores and taboos are missing, but fidelity is much more strongly emphasized, in that the entire worth of someone and how trustworthy they are is entirely based on how well they honor their vows and keep their word. If a noble marries, and then divorces, they are pretty much proclaiming to the world and the entire Compact that no, they cannot see their obligations through, even when it was a love match and they did something selfishly at the expense of their house. It would be difficult for them to be taken seriously again, so they would have to point to a lot of circumstances around it, and even then, most nobles would probably dismiss them out of hand as someone trustworhty. And that's for a very light case, someone that very clearly breaks a vow or acts in an extremely visibly dishonorable way is largely socially dead in terms of how other peers would look at them.

Now, for noble upon noble divorce, that would largely be asking, 'How do houses break their most significant, meaningful alliances that they stake their house prestige upon?' Well, they can, sure. It hurts them in ways that are pretty profound, that wouldn't be apparent. When Dominion is live, things like house income will be heavily tied to their prestige, because it is, in effect, consumer confidence and how confident investors feel in working with a house based on their reputation. If a house breaks one of its most meaningful pacts, it is likely shattered. So sure, divorces can happen, and breaking up alliances, but it has significant macro effects, and largely that'll be more about removing carrots when social systems come into play.