worldbabble - picfor1000 and rantod (marriage, sex, childbirth)
remember how i said my picfor1000 story was longer than the 1000 words i wrote for it? and that it wants me to write more? (did i mention that the boys keep having sex in my head? >.< ) i think i might need a name for erin's sister. and joost has friends and colleagues and a family somewhere - i think his dad is an academic and he has a younger brother who teaches high school or middle school, and his mom might be an artist of some stripe, and i have no idea where they live except not amsterdam. i have to look up dutch universities now. dad might be a history prof, or historical poli sci or the economic history of europe or something, because that's where joost got his interest in renaissance art. (well, it made sense in my head....) they're not really big city people, his parents. and i still want to go to amsterdam and do some hands-on research, as it were. see the rijksmuseum, walk along the canals, hang out *cough cough* in a coffeeshop.... take pictures of the houses and cafes and shops and etc.
also yesterday i was thinking about the age of consent and the legalities of sex for the rantod [1], and what is it with the worldbuilding for stories i'll never write.... anyway, i decided that the imperial age of consent for girls (ie, the age at which girls can be married) is fourteen, based on the fairly crude assumption "old enough to bleed, old enough to breed." and i guess they figure a fourteen-year-old is physically mature enough to bear a kid. wide enough hips, strong enough, etc etc. the law is less concerned with whether or not she's emotionally mature enough to be a mom, because in most cases she won't be raising the kid alone, and it's really only more noble (ie, wealthy) families that marry their daughters off that young. and in that case she'll have wet nurses and nannies and an estate full of people to help her deal with the kid. if you get caught having sex with a girl younger than fourteen, it doesn't matter who she is or who you are, that's a fine at the very least, and sometimes the fines can be hefty indeed. in very serious cases, or with repeat offenders, they cut the guy's prick off. it's entirely his fault/responsibility/whathaveyou and there are no legal penalties imposed on the girl or her family. she's not considered "damaged goods" or anything, she can be married off just as easily as if she was still a virgin. anything sexual that happens to her before she turns fourteen doesn't count in the eyes of the law. what happens after that, tho, is entirely different. i haven't quite worked that, tho, what the imperial attitude is to rape or unmarried sex or adultery or whatever.
because the legal definition of (and the traditional reason for) marriage is to produce children, it's socially acceptable for the woman to be pregnant or have already given birth before the marriage. you want to make sure both partners are sexually compatible and that the wife can bear kids. this doesn't happen quite so much with wealthy or noble families, mostly because they want to make sure the kid belongs to the husband for reasons of inheritance, and if the woman gets pregnant before she gets married, how can you be sure the kid is his? (yes i know this is kind of stupid in practical human terms - a woman can screw around on her husband after they're married and pass the kid off as his just as easily as she can do it before they're married - but that's the reasoning behind it.) sometimes couples will get engaged and stay engaged while they try to get pregnant, and only when the woman starts to show will they actually get married. an engagement/betrothal isn't anywhere near as binding a contract as a marriage, altho you can work more or fewer penalties into breaking it. sometimes one of the partners (or the family of the partner) has to pay a fine or give some kind of compensation to the other partner, or sometimes you can split up easily with possibly hard feelings but no penalties on either side. a lot of it depends on the partners (age, social class, previous marriages, families) and whether or not they had an actual contract drawn up and if the woman is pregnant or not. it's a lot harder to break off an engagement after you've gotten your future wife pregnant. it's considered kind of bad form to break an engagement, but the legal system allows for the fact that it does happen.
the groom's family pays for the wedding, by the way. they're seen as gaining a whole new set of descendants, and a wedding is considered a small price to pay in exchange. plus they want to prove they can take care of those future descendants. the wife brings as much of a household/dowry/whatever as her family can afford - for most people this is, like, clothes and maybe some furniture or household goods or some livestock or horses or something, altho wealthy women can come with complete households of servants and stuff and money and occasionally actual houses or estates.
if the bride should break off the engagement before the wedding but after things have been arranged and paid for, it falls to her and her family to repay the groom's family. if he breaks it off, she gets, well, nothing, unless her family has spent money on her dowry, in which case the groom repays them for that. basically the partner who breaks it off has to repay the other partner for any specifically wedding-related costs. if it's mutual, no harm no foul, they legally shake hands and go their separate ways.
the age of consent (and legal age of majority) for boys is eighteen, i think, which doesn't mean that it's illegal to have sex with a sixteen-year-old, just that boys younger than eighteen can't get married. altho why they'd want to is beyond anyone's comprehension.... they can be betrothed at birth if their families so desire, but there's no marriage happening until he's at least eighteen. the idea is that boys have to be old enough to support their families, and no sixteen-year-old is going to be able to do that, even if he does come from money and has the equivalent of a trust fund or something. he's not legally old enough to buy or rent property or open his own business or hire people or sign binding contracts or even be responsible for most of his own money until he's eighteen. unless he's in the army, in which case all the money he earns is his to do with what he wants, but even then he belongs to the army and can't do pretty much anything unless the army says it's ok.
altho now that i've written it out, maybe the age of majority should be younger but the age at which a guy can get married is still eighteen, to give him some time to build up some capital and at least try to find a career. altho i don't think many guys get married that young anyway - i don't think many of them want to. most girls don't get married at fourteen either. they're still useful to their families, and the older they are when they give birth, the more likely they are to survive it. well, up to a point - there are very few thirty-year-old women still having kids. it happens, just not that often. the imperial view of childbearing is that there are about fifteen years in which to do it, so you better get crackin'. also the death rate for moms and babies is still kind of high, and in purely practical terms, if a young woman dies in childbirth her husband can still marry someone else, but if she's older, he's also older, and while he might have more money than he did at twenty, he's not necessarily as physically fit, and historically there have been some fairly significant problems with much older men (who already have kids) marrying much younger women who then bear children of their own, and who are still pretty young when the old guy dies. if you're the much younger second/third/fourth wife of a much older man who has kids by his previous wife or wives, you might have to sign some very binding and very restrictive contracts to protect the kids he already has. (this is really only a problem for very wealthy or noble or politically powerful families. your average farmer or smith who has two kids by his first wife and then remarries when she dies and has another couple of kids with the second wife doesn't have nearly as much property to divide up among his children, and their inheritance/parental responsibility squabbles are a lot smaller. there are still stepparent and stepsib issues, but the law is less concerned with whether or not you actually like your stepmom.)
as for how this plays out on the island where most of the action is supposed to take place, i have no idea. i think they have the same idea about premarital sex, tho, that it's ok among couples who plan to marry anyway, altho they'd be appalled at the idea of fourteen-year-old girls getting married. and i think they're ok with sex before engagement, altho you are expected to form some kind of lasting bond in which you can take care of the kids, should the woman get pregnant. imperial laws are incredibly pragmatic and made without the undue emotional influence of, say, religion [2], but the island colony i think does things a little differently.
[1] romanaunovelthingofdoom, for those new to the insanity. historically-based fantasy novel about the end of an empire based on ancient rome, which i want to write only because i want to read it, and which may never actually get written because i have no idea how to plot a novel, or even if i can. and the worldbuilding so far has been more fun.
[2] as in, there's no prohibition of this, that, or the other thing because it's "wrong" or against the prevailing religion [3], and there's no concept of "this is legal because god says it's the right thing to do." mostly because their gods are just as fucked up as their people are, and running the government of an empire according to the will of crazy-ass gods who change their minds every other decade is STUPID. the imperial pantheon is not a bunch of entities you necessarily want telling you how to run your life. that said, most people do kind of believe that if you're nice to the gods they'll be nice to you, and there's nothing to be gained by pissing them off. and also? i don't think they believe their gods really want to run people's lives. the gods want to do what the gods want to do, and sometimes it's as simple as messing around with other gods, and not giving a shit what humans do.
[3] abortion and birth control, for instance. there can be a bit of a social stigma attached, especially if the woman is healthy and has enough money/support/whatever to raise the kid, but it's perfectly legal. the empire's been around long enough to understand that unwanted kids are a drain on government resources, and sometimes you have to abort to save the mom so she can try again later or continue to take care of the kids she already has. (there's also some imperial arrogance, in that an imperial citizen is allowed to abort a barbarian's child, because barbarians aren't as civilized/intelligent/pickyouradjective. this tends to happen mostly in border territories and mostly to rape survivors.) there's no concept that every sperm is sacred or life begins at implantation. if anything i think they think life begins at birth, because until the baby's actually born you can't do anything with it. it's still kind of a theoretical person. plus women miscarry and babies are stillborn, and it's easier to think of the kid as a real person after you know it survived being born, but not until then.
also yesterday i was thinking about the age of consent and the legalities of sex for the rantod [1], and what is it with the worldbuilding for stories i'll never write.... anyway, i decided that the imperial age of consent for girls (ie, the age at which girls can be married) is fourteen, based on the fairly crude assumption "old enough to bleed, old enough to breed." and i guess they figure a fourteen-year-old is physically mature enough to bear a kid. wide enough hips, strong enough, etc etc. the law is less concerned with whether or not she's emotionally mature enough to be a mom, because in most cases she won't be raising the kid alone, and it's really only more noble (ie, wealthy) families that marry their daughters off that young. and in that case she'll have wet nurses and nannies and an estate full of people to help her deal with the kid. if you get caught having sex with a girl younger than fourteen, it doesn't matter who she is or who you are, that's a fine at the very least, and sometimes the fines can be hefty indeed. in very serious cases, or with repeat offenders, they cut the guy's prick off. it's entirely his fault/responsibility/whathaveyou and there are no legal penalties imposed on the girl or her family. she's not considered "damaged goods" or anything, she can be married off just as easily as if she was still a virgin. anything sexual that happens to her before she turns fourteen doesn't count in the eyes of the law. what happens after that, tho, is entirely different. i haven't quite worked that, tho, what the imperial attitude is to rape or unmarried sex or adultery or whatever.
because the legal definition of (and the traditional reason for) marriage is to produce children, it's socially acceptable for the woman to be pregnant or have already given birth before the marriage. you want to make sure both partners are sexually compatible and that the wife can bear kids. this doesn't happen quite so much with wealthy or noble families, mostly because they want to make sure the kid belongs to the husband for reasons of inheritance, and if the woman gets pregnant before she gets married, how can you be sure the kid is his? (yes i know this is kind of stupid in practical human terms - a woman can screw around on her husband after they're married and pass the kid off as his just as easily as she can do it before they're married - but that's the reasoning behind it.) sometimes couples will get engaged and stay engaged while they try to get pregnant, and only when the woman starts to show will they actually get married. an engagement/betrothal isn't anywhere near as binding a contract as a marriage, altho you can work more or fewer penalties into breaking it. sometimes one of the partners (or the family of the partner) has to pay a fine or give some kind of compensation to the other partner, or sometimes you can split up easily with possibly hard feelings but no penalties on either side. a lot of it depends on the partners (age, social class, previous marriages, families) and whether or not they had an actual contract drawn up and if the woman is pregnant or not. it's a lot harder to break off an engagement after you've gotten your future wife pregnant. it's considered kind of bad form to break an engagement, but the legal system allows for the fact that it does happen.
the groom's family pays for the wedding, by the way. they're seen as gaining a whole new set of descendants, and a wedding is considered a small price to pay in exchange. plus they want to prove they can take care of those future descendants. the wife brings as much of a household/dowry/whatever as her family can afford - for most people this is, like, clothes and maybe some furniture or household goods or some livestock or horses or something, altho wealthy women can come with complete households of servants and stuff and money and occasionally actual houses or estates.
if the bride should break off the engagement before the wedding but after things have been arranged and paid for, it falls to her and her family to repay the groom's family. if he breaks it off, she gets, well, nothing, unless her family has spent money on her dowry, in which case the groom repays them for that. basically the partner who breaks it off has to repay the other partner for any specifically wedding-related costs. if it's mutual, no harm no foul, they legally shake hands and go their separate ways.
the age of consent (and legal age of majority) for boys is eighteen, i think, which doesn't mean that it's illegal to have sex with a sixteen-year-old, just that boys younger than eighteen can't get married. altho why they'd want to is beyond anyone's comprehension.... they can be betrothed at birth if their families so desire, but there's no marriage happening until he's at least eighteen. the idea is that boys have to be old enough to support their families, and no sixteen-year-old is going to be able to do that, even if he does come from money and has the equivalent of a trust fund or something. he's not legally old enough to buy or rent property or open his own business or hire people or sign binding contracts or even be responsible for most of his own money until he's eighteen. unless he's in the army, in which case all the money he earns is his to do with what he wants, but even then he belongs to the army and can't do pretty much anything unless the army says it's ok.
altho now that i've written it out, maybe the age of majority should be younger but the age at which a guy can get married is still eighteen, to give him some time to build up some capital and at least try to find a career. altho i don't think many guys get married that young anyway - i don't think many of them want to. most girls don't get married at fourteen either. they're still useful to their families, and the older they are when they give birth, the more likely they are to survive it. well, up to a point - there are very few thirty-year-old women still having kids. it happens, just not that often. the imperial view of childbearing is that there are about fifteen years in which to do it, so you better get crackin'. also the death rate for moms and babies is still kind of high, and in purely practical terms, if a young woman dies in childbirth her husband can still marry someone else, but if she's older, he's also older, and while he might have more money than he did at twenty, he's not necessarily as physically fit, and historically there have been some fairly significant problems with much older men (who already have kids) marrying much younger women who then bear children of their own, and who are still pretty young when the old guy dies. if you're the much younger second/third/fourth wife of a much older man who has kids by his previous wife or wives, you might have to sign some very binding and very restrictive contracts to protect the kids he already has. (this is really only a problem for very wealthy or noble or politically powerful families. your average farmer or smith who has two kids by his first wife and then remarries when she dies and has another couple of kids with the second wife doesn't have nearly as much property to divide up among his children, and their inheritance/parental responsibility squabbles are a lot smaller. there are still stepparent and stepsib issues, but the law is less concerned with whether or not you actually like your stepmom.)
as for how this plays out on the island where most of the action is supposed to take place, i have no idea. i think they have the same idea about premarital sex, tho, that it's ok among couples who plan to marry anyway, altho they'd be appalled at the idea of fourteen-year-old girls getting married. and i think they're ok with sex before engagement, altho you are expected to form some kind of lasting bond in which you can take care of the kids, should the woman get pregnant. imperial laws are incredibly pragmatic and made without the undue emotional influence of, say, religion [2], but the island colony i think does things a little differently.
[1] romanaunovelthingofdoom, for those new to the insanity. historically-based fantasy novel about the end of an empire based on ancient rome, which i want to write only because i want to read it, and which may never actually get written because i have no idea how to plot a novel, or even if i can. and the worldbuilding so far has been more fun.
[2] as in, there's no prohibition of this, that, or the other thing because it's "wrong" or against the prevailing religion [3], and there's no concept of "this is legal because god says it's the right thing to do." mostly because their gods are just as fucked up as their people are, and running the government of an empire according to the will of crazy-ass gods who change their minds every other decade is STUPID. the imperial pantheon is not a bunch of entities you necessarily want telling you how to run your life. that said, most people do kind of believe that if you're nice to the gods they'll be nice to you, and there's nothing to be gained by pissing them off. and also? i don't think they believe their gods really want to run people's lives. the gods want to do what the gods want to do, and sometimes it's as simple as messing around with other gods, and not giving a shit what humans do.
[3] abortion and birth control, for instance. there can be a bit of a social stigma attached, especially if the woman is healthy and has enough money/support/whatever to raise the kid, but it's perfectly legal. the empire's been around long enough to understand that unwanted kids are a drain on government resources, and sometimes you have to abort to save the mom so she can try again later or continue to take care of the kids she already has. (there's also some imperial arrogance, in that an imperial citizen is allowed to abort a barbarian's child, because barbarians aren't as civilized/intelligent/pickyouradjective. this tends to happen mostly in border territories and mostly to rape survivors.) there's no concept that every sperm is sacred or life begins at implantation. if anything i think they think life begins at birth, because until the baby's actually born you can't do anything with it. it's still kind of a theoretical person. plus women miscarry and babies are stillborn, and it's easier to think of the kid as a real person after you know it survived being born, but not until then.