Author: caryn elizabeth mallard (---.swbell.net)
Date: 03-07-2002 19:45
One of the things Hilary doesn't address in her excellent article, is how arranged marriages can be integrated into a world as a more positive tool. She is right to note the many uses for arranged marriages in Monarchic or Oligarchic societies, but I want to show some of them in a more positive light.
Having risen to prominence in the world, a PC has been petioned to become the ruler of a city (or city-state, or country...whatever) and its environs (its demense lands), that once was home to a major foe. The foe having been smacked around pretty hard by the PC (and friends), the people toss the Bad Guys out (or the BGs get killed in the fight, and the PC usurps the Throne by right of conquest).
There remain powerful factions within the aristocracy that are not happy about losing their position of influence, or of a chance for the Throne---or they may still be sympathetic to the Bad Guys, or hate nthe PC for some reason. How to bind them to the new regieme? They can be given offices, to be sure. If the territory is vast enough, estates and honours can be distributed from among those forfieted by the Bad Guys. But such inducements do not assure loyalty, only the absence of outright rebellion. To bind a powerful family to her own, the PC must make marriages. Not merely within her own family, for those must be minimized to safeguard her throne, but among her supporters. She must be careful to try and match the status of both parties, and must be quite public about how she goes about it. To refuse such a match, of course, is to rebell.
She will also be able to give or withold permission for marriages, not simply for those in her care, either. This further stablizes her Throne, so long as she acts wisely. Almost nothing angers the Nobles of a nation faster or more dangerously than messing up the marriage market. A poor marriage cost the Plantagenet House of York its Throne and extinguished its line.
What about same gender marriages? In my world they are frequent among one of the Old Races, unheard of among the New (you can have whoever you wish for a discrete lover, but you must marry according to the Law). The new Queen wants to marry her daughter to the daughter of one of the slain Bad Guys, in keeping with her traditions, and to tie the old family more closely to hers. In my world, the rcae to which the Queen belongs are known for their same-gender marriages, so the Queen herself is not deviant. But what of the Bad Guy daughter, who almost certainly expected to marry a male of her own race? What will the other nobles do? If she is a string Queen, they will line their daughters up with their sons, anxious for the benefits of alliance with the Queen.
Some peoples view marriage as the only tie with any meaning. A paper treaty, oaths sworn on relics...mean nothing. Words can be broken, but blood will tell.
Perhaps the PC also runs the daughter, who has just be asked for to seal an alliance, in marriage to another daughter (NPC, the Bady Guy daughter). What to do?
caryn
Y.R.D.
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