Remove ads

Paths of Civilization

Reader mode
veekie said:
-Chief of Inadvisable/Risky Entertainments(Rodeos, Prostitution and other potentially disharmonious amusements) - ???
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
This might sound a bit silly, but I would not be at all surprised if this is a centauress playing a harp or something similar. As people have noted, riding the horses is considered an act of masculine prowess, so even if there is no official 'guild symbology', it's likely that crude humor and the now-officially established association with sexuality will ensure centauresses/centaurides will be a big thing for the Ymaryn. Hopefully it encourages riding mares rather than idiot stallions.
 
Last edited:
pblur said:
That's pretty much malarkey. We absorb their populations, and then the exact same pressures (psychological, hormonal and social) which push people into marriage all the time push them into marriage as well.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Absorb... such a nice clinical word that can hide so many abuses. What it comes down to is that if the woman chooses the person she marries in order not to starve to death it is prostitution, if the choice is made for her it is rape.
 
DragonParadox said:
Absorb... such a nice clinical word that can hide so many abuses. What it comes down to is that if the woman chooses the person she marries in order not to starve to death it is prostitution, if the choice is made for her it is rape.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
If all your going to do is complain about this topic do you have anything constructive to add or are you just going to keep on taking potshots at something that would require changing human nature in order to change at all?
 
In case anyone is wondering WHY a nomad woman would marry one of their conquerors, here's a list of motivations I can think of. Marrying into whatever tribe you're in was normal, and generally didn't involve rape.

Bronze age drives for marriage

Sex drive/maternity drive

Both of these are primarily biological, and really focus more on having sex than marriage directly... but through social and economic pressures tend to be mutated into that. Ymaryn warriors are PROBABLY sexier (on average) than any other social class of any nearby polity.

Hypergamy

Women statistically marry across and up dominance hierarchies. It's probably their most robust tool for social mobility, since it has been somewhat available even in the most oppressive societies. In the Ymaryn, this means women are far more likely to marry a warrior than a half-exile. They and their children are then less likely to become half exiles in the future, and far more likely to have advancement opportunities.

Social ostracization

Most societies treat non-married people of marriageable age as weird. Given the high mortality rates, NOT contributing to reproduction is ODD. And make no mistake, human societies are like dog packs: if someone is unstable and behaviorally weird, kill them. Or at least ostracize them as a quarantine of the weirdness. It's part of the social immune system, keeping society functional by mandating a common standard of behavior. It's also why large societies tended to abuse homosexuals.

The Ymaryn are way ahead here though, with the same solution as medieval Europe. We provide one positive path of both advancement and mild quarantine: the shamans (monks/nuns for medieval Europe). Still, in spite of that release valve, there's a pressure to be normal and get married.
 
SpeckofStardust said:
If all your going to do is complain about this topic do you have anything constructive to add or are you just going to keep on taking potshots at something that would require changing human nature in order to change at all?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

My original objective was to disprove the notion of Ymaryn saintliness, but potential solutions include:
  1. A review of all marriages to ensure both parts are willing (it would have to be a religious law). Not perfect but should catch some abuses.
  2. Divorce law sophisticated enough to not leave either party destitute.
  3. And of course the big one: an independent judiciary
 
DragonParadox said:
  • A review of all marriages to ensure both parts are willing (it would have to be a religious law). Not perfect but should catch some abuses.
  • Divorce law sophisticated enough to not leave either party destitute.
  • And of course the big one: an independent judiciary
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
4) Change of human nature to remove corruption.
 
DragonParadox said:
Absorb... such a nice clinical word that can hide so many abuses. What it comes down to is that if the woman chooses the person she marries in order not to starve to death it is prostitution, if the choice is made for her it is rape.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
That's the same sort of language shenanigans as the libertarians claiming that taxes are slavery; the government effectively forcing you to work for free for a quarter of your day.

And the answer is the same: If you ignore the connotation, you have a point.

But prostitution carries a different (and wrong) connotation that hypergamy doesn't. Yes, women on average marry richer people. Yes, in primitive societies, that meant they ate better (and in extreme cases didn't die). But that's a part of their own internal human nature; it's the choices the tend to willingly make. It's not their husband's fault in any way. It doesn't in any way preclude the development or existence of love.
 
pblur said:
That's the same sort of language shenanigans as the libertarians claiming that taxes are slavery; the government effectively forcing you to work for free for a quarter of your day.

And the answer is the same: If you ignore the connotation, you have a point.

But prostitution carries a different (and wrong) connotation that hypergamy doesn't. Yes, women on average marry richer people. Yes, in primitive societies, that meant they ate better (and in extreme cases didn't die). But that's a part of their own internal human nature; it's the choices the tend to willingly make. It's not their husband's fault in any way. It doesn't in any way preclude the development or existence of love.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

There is a fundamental qualitative difference between a woman marrying up the social ladder for status as opposed to "in order to avoid starvation." That's where coercion comes in.
 
DragonParadox said:
Absorb... such a nice clinical word that can hide so many abuses. What it comes down to is that if the woman chooses the person she marries in order not to starve to death it is prostitution, if the choice is made for her it is rape.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
... you are aware a major point of the attractiveness of the the Ymaryn to refugees is that starvation is incredibly rare and everyone gets food provided? You are basically making shit up that directly contradicts what we know about the people.
 
DragonParadox said:
There is a fundamental qualitative difference between a woman marrying up the social ladder for status as opposed to "in order to avoid starvation." That's where coercion comes in.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Didn't we have this funny society where you get what you need to survive (but have to work)? And why do we have a moral obligation to care for the dependents of the males who just tried again to kill, rape and steal from our people, but happened to be wiped out? And where is the problem with accepting their women as wifes instead of raping and killing them?
Sorry, but we are already beyond contemporary behavior, see real world civil wars including massacres; purification wars; holy wars etc.
 
Carrnage said:
... you are aware a major point of the attractiveness of the the Ymaryn to refugees is that starvation is incredibly rare and everyone gets food provided? You are basically making shit up that directly contradicts what we know about the people.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I was talking about the possibility of women being exiled over refusing the advances of the warriors which is likely common enough to serve as a looming threat.
 
DragonParadox said:
There is a fundamental qualitative difference between a woman marrying up the social ladder for status as opposed to "in order to avoid starvation." That's where coercion comes in.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Again, you're using the wrong connotation for the situation we're discussing. It SOUNDS like you're discussing a scenario where a man is preventing a woman from getting food until she agrees to marry him. That's using starvation as coercion.

Edit: apparently you WERE discussing this in direct contravention of everything we know about our people. My bad.

But what we're ACTUALLY discussing is a woman without the ability to earn enough to feed her and her children. And then finding, romancing, and marrying a man who is wealthy enough to secure their future.


Again though, connotation is part of the meaning. Let me flip the connotation to the opposite wrong for a moment: And then finding, seducing/entrapping, and marrying a wealthy man for his money. That makes her out to be a villain for doing the proper thing in her situation. It's not FACTUALLY different.

Or back to your connotation error: And then finding and prostituting herself in marriage to a wealthy man for food for her children. That makes her out to be his victim instead of his partner.

Neither of those are right. Our love center is highly adaptive, and in the vast majority of cases will push us towards someone who will fulfil our needs (including social and economic ones.) The fact that they fulfil our needs makes them neither victim nor victimizer.
 
Last edited:
pblur said:
Oh, I didn't know you were talking about this.

That's wild speculation and not even worth discussing.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

How opposed do you consider pure murder to our values? Just straight up hit someone until they stop moving.... It would go against symphony and greater justice would it not? Yet by word of GM we have sky-high murder rates compared to modern society, though better than our neighbors.

The issue is that you are starting from the premise that just because something is a social value transgressing against it is some kind of statistical fluke.
 
Last edited:
DragonParadox said:
How opposed do you consider pure murder yo our values? Just straight up hit someone until they stop moving.... It would go against symphony and greater justice would it not? Yet my word of GM we have sky-high murder rates compared to modern society, though better then our neighbors.

The issue is that you are starting from the premise that just because something is a social value transgressing against it is some kind of statistical fluke.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Nope. I completely agree we have individual cases of rape and murder at a higher rate than modern. By a lot.

But individual warriors don't make exile decisions, so coercing someone with threat of exile isn't something that can happen on the same individual level. And I don't believe our society is corrupt enough to have that be common practice for our chiefs because A) it's against our values and B) you have no evidence at all for it.
 
DragonParadox said:
How opposed do you consider pure murder yo our values? Just straight up hit someone until they stop moving.... It would go against symphony and greater justice would it not? Yet my word of GM we have sky-high murder rates compared to modern society, though better then our neighbors.

The issue is that you are starting from the premise that just because something is a social value transgressing against it is some kind of statistical fluke.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
It's kind of hard for a single person to declare someone an exile without cause, even chiefs would piss off the shamans through such obvious corruptionl
 
Coercion can and likely does exist. But it's probably more limited to things like whether an activity is considered to be taxable, what kind of taxation that it qualifies for, and the kind of jobs that a person is given for their period of annual service to the community.

Exiling is effectively a death sentence, and is such it will be heavily scrutinized by the community for impropriety. Half-exiling a disfavored person, on the other hand, can be done with less scrutiny in the more corrupt provinces of our nation.
 
Last edited:
pblur said:
Nope. I completely agree we have individual cases of rape and murder at a higher rate than modern. By a lot.

But individual warriors don't make exile decisions, so coercing someone with threat of exile isn't something that can happen on the same individual level. And I don't believe our society is corrupt enough to have that be common practice for our chiefs because A) it's against our values and B) you have no evidence at all for it.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Legal grey area, if someone is never accepted into the people to begin with one does not have to go through the traditional forms for exiling them.

Carrnage said:
It's kind of hard for a single person to declare someone an exile without cause, even chiefs would piss off the shamans through such obvious corruptionl
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Say you have a raiding party in the middle of the steppe, the only shaman in a hundred leagues the carrion eater that has been with this bunch for decades and owes his life to the others just as they do to him. Who is going to stop the group resolving to drive off any women who "don't know a good thing when they see it"? Who would report this kind of abuse?
 
DragonParadox said:
Legal grey area, if someone is never accepted into the people to begin with one does not have to go through the traditional forms for exiling them.



Say you have a raiding party in the middle of the steppe, the only shaman in a hundred leagues the carrion eater that has been with this bunch for decades and owes his life to the others just as they do to him. Who is going to stop the group resolving to drive off any women who "don't know a good thing when they see it"? Who would report this kind of abuse?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Are we talking about marriage or battlefield rape? Cause I was talking about the first. The second happens of course
 
DragonParadox said:
And the second can lead to the first. The words: "If I don't take you who will?" come to mind The social pressures especially in patriarchal set-up like the Stallions are ubiquitous.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I'm not sure that lack of virginity is a sign of worthlessness is our culture. Between prostitution being a legalized profession, and the warriors marrying the widows of their former enemies, it doesn't seem to be as much of a stigma as it may be in some other cultures.
 
DragonParadox said:
And the second can lead to the first. The words: "If I don't take you who will?" come to mind The social pressures especially in patriarchal set-up like the Stallions are ubiquitous.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
We don't have a particular animus against premarital sex, so no 'not-a-virgin' issue. On top of that, every pregnant woman from that tribe is a widow getting absorbed. They will mostly marry someone.

I don't see any reason to expect it to be their rapist.
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top