That's why I specified Rulwyna. Nothing mystic-exotic like with the Dragon General. She rose with the Red Banner (and how many women does the Red Banner hold these days I wonder?), and then was elected king as a superb general and administrator. The same way a man would, really. But these days, women don't seem to be able to do that anymore, if one reads the family life descriptions AN posted. Certainly, women haven't even come up as candidates in the last half dozen king decisions, except for the super-special obviously deity-touched Dragon General.
Something like Rulwyna, possibly our best monarch ever without whom our civilization would have outright crumbled, would not be possible these days.
No, Rulwyna was
blocked from attaining Kingship to the extent that 2/4 of her paths to power involved some kind of military coup, and the last 1/4 that we took wound up with an
economic coup, by blowing up the existing monopolies and founding a new one through establishing an entirely new product.
Someone like Rulwyna would have obtained power these days by manipulating the theaters and entertainers into power instead.
It might not be actual prostitution. It may be that any sex outside of licensed prostitution or our local analogue to marriage can be considered to be "unlicensed prostitution", especially if at least one participant is a member of the lower classes.
We have prostitution defined as the acquisition of goods, food, or luxuries through trading of sexual activity. We're relatively open to sexual activity out of wedlock or unusual sexual activities in general.
If nothing else works... but as I've said before, the notion that the push towards heredity and noble rule is a one-way street until there is some sort of French Revolution is mistaken. Heredity and noble power can be pushed back. We just need to find a way how. We need to weaken the Patrician class and empower other classes, and we must always take the option that allows for the greatest social mobility.
You don't get the "best and brightest" with hereditary rule, though. You get those who are offspring of the current rulers, nothing more, nothing less.
You have to start with ignoring the Yeomen quests then. Their quests make the Patricians stronger funny enough..
But there are many methods to gain education. Tutors were a well-known and wide-spread job during ancient times. And Patrician families are not the only who can afford tutors. There are also the traders, or guild masters or even the wealthiest of the yeomen families. Especially with the Arete trait, proper education may become a virtue even in non-Patrician circles, so it's possibles families may be willing to spend quite a bit on tutors.
So you can get people properly educated even outside patrician families. But all those other peoples are locked out from the ruling class.
As I've said before, I'm pretty willing to go to a wealth-based oligarchic system, which by its nature allows at least a certain modicum of social mobility. It is at least better than a pure blood-line based system.
But the bolded is pretty much completely bullshit as a claim. The latest information post lays it out as the opposite.
The Patricians do not hoard titles because they can't.
They hoard
competence. They work hard to make sure nobody else can get the skills and contacts to break into the Patrician game of elite administrators, meaning the tutors are available only through their contact networks.
This is the natural political outcome of a meritocracy: if you cannot manipulate the selection process then you simply manipulate the qualifications instead.
It would be like requiring a college degree to enter politics, but positions in college are only available via a secret mailing list.
