Old A'millian culture

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Destructionator
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Old A'millian culture

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Part I: legal marriage

I've gone on at some length now about how mating works with the biological A'millians, and now, it is time to examine how that extends into culture.

As I said before, they are, by nature, a monogamous pair-bonding species. That is, they mate for life and have a social and mostly exclusive sexual relationship. The social bond is present all year; it doesn't change with the mating season.


This nature carries over directly to modern {Let modern = King Devon's reign.} civilization, with some additions, such as the sexual relationship becoming legally exclusive (that is, one can be prosecuted for adultery).

Legally, marriage, like the natural pair-bond, can only occur once per person. There are no divorces, no annulments, no remarrying. (Since there are no divorces, there are also no prenuptial agreements, but even if there were, they would be unenforceable, I'll move on to that next.)

Upon marriage, what basically happens is the two spouses are considered as two aspects as the same legal person (with a few exceptions). This has some immediate consequences: the two spouses have all their personal property, debts, and other contracts consolidated upon marriage. They now owned by the union rather than the individual. This is what nixs prenups: you cannot enter in a contract with yourself, so upon the marriage, it is rendered nonsensical, and thus, null and void.

It is worth noting that their citizen's wages are still given to the individuals, but they are taxed as a pair. This usually means the couple are basically hit with a tax penalty (they are now in a higher income bracket than before due to double income being combined), but since their expenses are consolidated too, this usually doesn't have a big hit on their day to day lives.

The exceptions to the union are 'appointed positions', which remain with the individual, however, his spouse may use any of his titles if marked as the spouse. For example, the Crown is held by an individual rather than a married union, so only one is the Sovereign (king-regnant or queen-regnant, but his/her spouse can also use the title - king-consort or queen-consort).

Part of being the same legal person is a recognized implicit total trust between the individuals in the pair. Both have full authority over each other. For example, a husband can always give consent for medical procedures on his wife. He can also sign her name to a credit card application (they share the debt anyway, so what difference does it make?). In a more extreme example, a husband can also sign his wife up for military service!

However, again, this doesn't extend to the almighty appointed position. While a spouse may sign his/her other half's name to an official document, this does not hold any legal weight if challenged. The justification for this exception is that the implicit trust between a bonded pair does not necessarily extend to third parties. (In practice though, challenging one of these would be considered bad form in all but the most extreme situations; it is an insult to the consort's, and by extension, the regnant's, honor.)


I said above that there is no divorce, so what happens if one partner breaks this implicit trust? This is considered unthinkable, so you could make the argument that the trust breaking partner has gone insane - that is the only reasonable explanation for mistreating a life long mate, so it wouldn't be too hard to prove. Then, steps appropriate to that diagnosis can be taken (authorized by the sane mate).

But, even that isn't an actual escape from the marriage. This leads to an important fact about modern society: marriage is not taken lightly, and almost never rushed into. This is why so many marriages don't occur until both partners have known each other for a very long time, and many modern A'millians don't marry until they are several hundred years old.

The legal marriage comes after the biological pair-bond has already solidified and the trust tested.


The legal union also has a number of other effects too. One is that a pair cannot be forced to divulge information about the other. State secrets may also be shared between them - you cannot ask someone to keep a secret from himself, can you? The same reasoning also extends to communication: the lines of communication between a legally married couple may never be broken, unless it is by unavoidable technical reasons. If someone is locked up in solitary confinement and he wants to talk to his wife on the outside, you have to let him. Furthermore, they have a right to privacy; this communication may not be monitored without their consent (again, if mind reading was possible, the justification for this would also apply there - you cannot force information about a person's thoughts out to the public).

Speaking of which, a married couple also cannot be physically separated for long (separation for long can lead to a crushing depression in both individuals). This has ramifications for things like military service. If one is to be sent off on a mission, one of three things must happen: 1) you let him bring his spouse (and, if applicable, his family) with him, 2) you pay their way to visit each other on a regular basis, or 3) the mission must be guaranteed to not take very long.

If none of those can possibly be met, you need to find single people to do that job, or it just legally can't, and won't, be done. Citing forced separation from a spouse by a commander is legal grounds to relieve that commander of duty, by force if needed, - marriage is taken very seriously.

On taking names: one of the old traditions (the one most often seen) is the partner of higher social status will take the name of the partner of lower social status. The reason for this stems from the fact that nobles don't usually have surnames of their own. Instead, they go by the name of the land over which they preside. Since the noble title can be used anyway (for example, the Baroness-consort Midea), if a surname is present, it is adopted by both and their children. This has warped into a more general meaning in modern civilization.


Bed time has crept right up on me tonight, but I'll finish this at some point later. Stuff still on the to write up list: how the wedding ceremony works (you might find it weird that I've spent so much time working this out, but remember, this universe is, at its core, all about the life author-insert, who is married, and thus, went through it all, meaning I have thought about it all), cross-species marriages, homosexual marriages, and finally how the traditional A'millian customs, outlined here, changed as they started integrating more with the humans of planet Earth. And anything else I forgot today.
His Certifiable Geniusness, Adam D. Ruppe (My 'verse)
Marle: Lucca! You're amazing!
Lucca: Ain't it the truth! ... Oh, um...I mean...
Marle: Enough with the false modesty! You have a real gift! I would trade my royal ancestry for your genius in a heartbeat!

"I still really hate those pompous assholes who quote themselves in their sigs." -- Me
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Re: Old A'millian culture

Post by Destructionator »

From SDN:
Darth Wong wrote:Broomie makes a good point about how some people are simply predisposed to be unhappy, regardless of their actual conditions; there have been quite a few studies showing that too.

[...]

As for the pain of losing a child, you could make the same argument for not marrying, since the pain of losing a spouse is great too (the suicide rate is extremely high among young male widowers). That's the risk you take when you love someone, and there is no greater love than that of a devoted parent for his child.
I quote this here because he makes two somewhat important points about the culture. The first one is the opposite of his first paragraph: just as there are some people who are never really happy, there are a lot who are almost always happy, regardless of what they are given. The latter are what the culture (and their biology) tries to foster; be content with what you have. Now, this does lead to a lack of ambition among a huge number of people, but it also means they are really easy to please.

The second point Mike made that is of interest here is about suicide among young widowers. I've mentioned this at least quickly in the past, but suicide is considered just fine among A'millians if they don't have any standing obligations (such as young dependent children) and pass a short waiting period before going through with it. So long as those conditions are met, the government will help you along in letting you go. It is very similar to the rules for space colony succession I described in an OZ thread.

Suicide is not permitted among nobles, since they always have a standing obligation to the people under them. This is one of the pieces of their society which is utterly unfair, and the root cause of this contributes to Sir Michael turning traitor and supporting this thing called a 'constitutional republic' where 'all people are born into equality' and other new age nonsense. :P

This culture combined with the crushing depression that comes with the loss of your mate, at any age (which is greatly determined by their biology), means if you kill one individual in a bonded pair, the other almost certainly, unless a noble, isn't going to live past the suicide waiting period either. Well in excess of 90% of people kill themselves within one month if they lose their spouse. This is even enshrined right in the end of their traditionally wedding vows: "thy last breath shalt also by mine own".

This depression led to the generally ineffectual reign of Queen Rosalie after her husband was assassinated. Since she had a young daughter on the way, she couldn't actually kill herself, even if she were a commoner, but she probably shouldn't have actually taken the throne anyway given how debilitating the loss of a mate is. But she felt she had to given the circumstances, and it ended up probably for the better in the long term, since her depression and paranoia did end up giving us Queen Anna.

This is also seen after the holocaust, and includes one of the few orders of Queen Jessica's very short reign: removing the wait period. Anyone who didn't want to keep living after the holocaust could kill himself right there and then.

And a great number of the survivors did just that. A few considered revenge first (this is one of the very rare cases where they actually have a revenge instinct), but since it wasn't possible in the short term, they quickly forgot about it and went with the ritual suicide instead.

This is why all the surviving A'millians in the modern day are either depressed nobles who just focus entirely on their work to get by each day (and are dying right off too as time goes on partially due to apathy to their own health), Mr and Mrs self-insert (who at least still had each other, otherwise, they'd have eaten bullets too) or unmarried.
His Certifiable Geniusness, Adam D. Ruppe (My 'verse)
Marle: Lucca! You're amazing!
Lucca: Ain't it the truth! ... Oh, um...I mean...
Marle: Enough with the false modesty! You have a real gift! I would trade my royal ancestry for your genius in a heartbeat!

"I still really hate those pompous assholes who quote themselves in their sigs." -- Me
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