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Author Topic: Polyandry, and how does it work?
hoptoad
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I am writing a short story set in a society ( fantasy ) where men and women lead very separate lives, the women even have their own language that the menfolk are forbidden to learn. The society is primarily matriarchal and polyandrous. The question is: In your opinion, how would paternity be determined in such a society. Do you think it would even matter? (I know there are people who lurk on these boards who live in countries where polyandry is accepted, I'm especially keen on your input. )
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hoptoad
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PS: If anyone's remotely interested.
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Christine
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In my opinion such a society would only happen if maternity were far more important that paternity and in fact, I believe that women would only be separated like that if they were held to be slightly superior (or very superior to) men.

I just can't make it work in my head that the women would be separated because they were looked down upon. In this case, there might be a group of women living separate from the men (harem) but there would only be ONE man with access to that little (or not so little) group of women.

Matriarchy would be important, but not patriarchy.


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pantros
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Paternity wouldn't matter if they dont have ways to test or they could just not allow lesser husbands access to the woman during her fertile time.

And yes, you can predict fertility in most women. Sunday was my 12th anniversary. The only method of birth control we have ever used is "rhythm method". We have a very active romantic life and have 3 children (10 years, 9 years and 1 month old)- all planned down to which month they would be born in. Planning gender is trickier, but we managed to get that part right too, but that might be luck.

So its not infeesible to have a society that plans paternity. Though it should be noted that most ancient societies had the time of fertility wrong. Most assumed it was immediately following the menses(some thought during), when it is actually 10-14 days after.


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pantros
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I am unaware of any modern society where polyandry is accepted. There are several where poly relationships are not illegal, but none where a woman can marry multiple men. A very few remote tribes do practice this, but I don't think any are on this board.
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Christine
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Nowadays it's called "natural family planning" and just for those who are interested, it is much more complex than the old "rythm method" which was entirely based on dates on a calendar and not that accurate. Done properly, natural family planning is as effective as the birth control pill in preventing pregnancies and on the flipside, very effective for knowing when you can GET pregnant. The trouble is that there is a learning curve with this method and during the first 6 months to a year, in particular, it does not prove to be nearly so effective at stopping pregnancy as so-called "artificial" methods.
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hoptoad
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We had someone on the boards in the last 3 or 4 months who mentioned the practice in their country, I think it was India.

However, this quote from the website listed above, shows how it is done among the Bari:

quote:

When a child is born among the Bari, the mother publically announces the names of the one or more men she believes to be the fathers, who, if they accept paternity, are expected to provide care for the mother and child.

That is probably a very practical way to approach this, and yes Christine, the women are the advantaged gender in the setting.

[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited August 09, 2006).]


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hoptoad
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Ahh, it was quidscribus, SriLanka.

I am intrigued now, with the notion of women being the holders of fertility secrets within the society described.

The idea of the separate and exclusively female language is based on the Chinese Nushu.

Perhaps marriage would not be as hard and fast in such a society.

I'm spitballing here.

[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited August 09, 2006).]


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pantros
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India is a very large place with very many people and has more diverse distinct cultures than any other single country. I don't doubt that one of those cultures is polyandrous, but I think in that particular culture its a type of timeshare with the wife as the shared property. The culture there is still male dominant.
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hoptoad
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Pantros, are you suggesting that such a society is inherently prone to fail or remain small?
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hoptoad
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This from our friends at Wikipedia:
quote:

Occurrence
Polyandry has occurred in Tibet (see Polyandry in Tibet), the Canadian Arctic, Zanskar, Nepal, India, Zanskar, Ladakh, Toda of South India, Nairs of Kerala, the Nymba, Nishi and Pahari of North India), and Sri Lanka. It is also encountered in some regions of Mongolia, China (especially Yunnan- the Mosuo people), and in some Subsaharan African and American indigenous communities (notably the Surui of northwestern Brazil). The Guanches, the first known inhabitants of the Canary Islands, also practiced it until their disappearance...


Polyandry in Tibet was a fraternal thing, where brothers all married the same woman, but it was still the eldest brother who tended to dominate the household.

[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited August 09, 2006).]


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pantros
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No, society dictates the relationships.
If people are raised in a society where women are dominant, it is entirely believable to have men accept their roles as second class citizens or slaves - especially if the local religion dictates such.

The trick is coming up with a reason why women are dominant. Are they genetically stronger? So rare that they are worshipped? Pick a reason and stick with it.


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Robert Nowall
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On hoptoad's original question...I'd suggest genetic testing if you hadn't said it was a fantasy. A magical paternity test?
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Sara Genge
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Mongols have or used to have a polyandrous system: two brothers married the same woman. One stayed at home and did whatever farming mongols do and the other went out to herd sheep. After six month the brother would come back and they'd switch places so that they didn't ever share the same woman in the same house, they took turns. That kind of rotatory marriage was necessary because there were less women than men (?). It was possible because brothers were slightly less prone to killing each other to keep the gal than non-related men would have been, and because they weren't in each others faces all the time. The six month interval meant that most times, everyone knew who was the father of the babies. Even so, the younger brother always tried to find a wife of his own and marry her in a monogamous relationship.
One reason for a polyandrous society: when resources are very very scarce and it takes more than one father to provide for a child. This year you help me feed my kid, next year, I'll help you with yours.

[This message has been edited by Sara Genge (edited August 09, 2006).]


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kings_falcon
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If the society is matriarchal, IMHO paternity wouldn't matter. The reason paternity mattered in medieval societies is all rights and benefits flowed from the father. As a corrolary, ensuring the faithfulness of the wife was important so the "father" knew the offpring was his. If the benefits of society flowed through the mother, she KNOWS whether she gave birth to child X so monogomy is not important.

Mercedes Lackey addressed the issue briefly in Firebrand which is her retelling of the Trojan war from Cassandra's POV. Cassandra was an Amazon. When she is brought to Agammemnon's house, his wife (Lysandra?) who also worships the Earth Mother, asks Cassandra whose child she is holding. Cassandra responds the child is hers. Lysandra lets Cassandra and the child live.


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Silver3
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To chime in with a real-world example. We studied the Na tribe of China in an anthropology course. They have a completely matriarchal society, where women hold the land and the power. To answer your question: no, paternity doesn't matter. In fact, marriages are few: the traditional way for a man to sleep with a woman is the "night visit", ie creeping around her house, hoping he won't run into her brothers or that she won't scream when he gets into her bedroom. Meanwhile, the man goes on living with his mother.

Which means that when there's a child, paternity can seldom be traced anyway. It doesn't matter: the lineage comes through the mother.

There are higher levels of relationship, the highest of which is somewhat akin to marriage, but it's still revokable at any time by the woman. (I can't remember very well, but the second lowest is taking a man into the house so he'll till the fields; he has the status of a servant whose work is paid in food and board, and takes the name of the family he serves).

What's funny is that, without a father-mother couple to found a Western-style family, the family rearranged itself around the siblings: brothers and sisters live under the same roof, and there are very strong prohibitions to their being together, so as to discourage incest.

The Na are not polyandrous, though. The only real-world example I know of that is in Ceylon (but my knowledge on the matter is rather limited). Two men may take a single wife between themselves. It's not that she's considered superior, it's that they think they won't be able to support her on their own, and they need someone to take care of their house while they till their common fields. I don't know how they solve the paternity problem at that point, though (I think they're both fathers, but I'm not sure).
In the same society, polygamy also exists, but it's a sign of wealth: if you have two wives, it means you can afford to feed them both.

I'd advise you to look into small tribes like that if you need inspiration. It's true that polyandry (and, in a lesser measure, polygamy) are not much practised today, but there are remnants, here and there.

[This message has been edited by Silver3 (edited August 09, 2006).]


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KatFeete
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Another close-to-home cultural example to look at is the ancient Celts. It's not easy to find info on them (the Romans, and later the Christians, were pretty effective at supressing what was a basically oral culture) but women were certainly given a great deal of freedom among them. They had numerous forms of marriage, ranging from "year and a day", limited time marriages to marriages in which both people were allowed to take other partners to our modern concept of marriage. They also had a fairly interesting inheritance system in which a man's nephew inherited his property. The reasoning went that your son, well, anybody could have sired him, but you could be pretty darn sure that your sister's son was related to you.

I'll see if I can dig up some more concrete references.


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wbriggs
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I'd heard of polyandry in Nepal, where 2 or more brothers would "go in" on a wife, because they couldn't afford one each. I was surprised. A polyandrous society, and it's still non-matriarchal.


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hoptoad
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So this is how it is shaping up:
  • Men and women live in separate 'villages'.
  • Women are socially dominant.
  • When a child is born the mother approaches all the men she thinks are possibly the father and declares the child to be theirs. If any or all of them agree then they become 'fathers' to the child and 'husbands' to the woman.
  • Men are are elevated in social standing, especially among other men, through marriage and become part of the community of husbands in a separate 'village'.
  • A husband devotes their labour to the support of the woman and her household.
  • When a son is born, he is raised in the women's village only until he begins to speak, then he is put into a 'creche.'
  • Normal duties include working to support his wife's household and to work in the creche teaching manly things to his sons and the sons of his wife's household; like how to work, how to fight and how to participate in men's secret ceremonies.
  • When the boy reaches adolescence he is removed to the men's village.
  • Woman are free to have sexual relations with any man in the single mens' village but are forbidden to do so with her own sons, nephews and cousins and any husband other than one of her own.
  • If a woman should choose, she does not have to approach the man who she thinks is the natural father of her new child. She can approach another. Similarly a man does not have to accept the invitation to claim a child. Both cases are unlikely but possible.
  • Young men tend to be highly mobile and travel from men's village to men's village throughout the land. Remain in one's own mens' village for too long and you end up related to everyone and have little prospect of marriage.
  • These wandering single males look for work assisting other communities of husbands. or in tending the lands of unwed, barren and elderly women.
  • When a husband dies, a woman has to observe a period of mourning but once complete may approach another single man to be the father and join the household.

Ostensibly, the story is about a young man who travels to a remote place to tend the land of a barren woman — very few men want to be a 'first' husband and do all the hard work breaking up land and clearing trees especially if it is known that the woman is infertile. The pair are isolated in a remote, mountainous area. For certain reasons she begins teaching him the forbidden language and in return, he teaches her how to use the daha a male ceremonial weapon.


Does this setting seem feasible?
Any obvious problems or difficulties?
Any implications I may want to be aware of?

[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited August 11, 2006).]


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wbriggs
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My reactions:

Cool. I can see a lot of interesting twists happening in this world.

Would the young man really need to move on? I don't see how simply being in the village for a while would make him "related" to too many women. Maybe I missed something.

You might add the possibility marriage for childless women. After all, people *do* fall in love and want to commit.

I am not sure I like the creche idea. I'd think you'd need a fairly close-knit society (like a kibbutz) to support one of these. The other issue is that 2 years old is *very* young to be taken from the mother -- and mothers do love their sons! What if the child stayed with the mother till near puberty? This seems natural.

The man and woman sharing secrets: these are secrets the sexes have from each other, right? You'd need a reason other than love, I think -- else married couples throughout history would already have been sharing this info. Maybe there's a reason they need to know.

Some organizations can keep secrets by virtue of nobody outside caring that much. (Freemasons & similar organizations -- and I think their secrets are out anyway, by people who broke their oaths.) OTOH, I think some tribal societies have secret initiation rituals that are never revealed to the opposite sex. I'd assume that means the secrets are important, and it's obvious why they shouldn't be shared. Not sure.

I hope I get to read your story.

Books this makes me think of:

Homecoming, OSC. Men and women have different societies to some degree.

Iron John, Robert Bly. A view of what boys need from fathers. The thing about going to the father around puberty made me think of this.

[This message has been edited by wbriggs (edited August 11, 2006).]


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Sara Genge
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I don't think the creche is a bad idea. It doesn't stop the Mom from taking care of her son, she probably takes turns with other women and the son gets to see her more than if she were working a 9h day. Maybe the mothers of young children all live in a very big house, with all the young kids sleeping in the center and their mothers in a circle around them.
You don't need separate villages for women and men. If the houses are communal, separate houses are enough. I'm thinking of the practical aspects of having a husband that lives two miles away. It's a long treck in the middle of the night.

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pooka
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There is a book in the Uncle Orson Review this week which is set in a maternal-inheriting universe. Just FYI. That maternal line is very important in the Judeo-Christian tradition seems to be ignored by many, but a lot of the Bible is consumed with it.

I find the extract on Leakey to be of dubious scientific detachment since it describes polyandry as being beneficial. How is the beneficialness determined? Is it a benefit that can be extracted from the culture it is in? I think children benefit when they are secure in their physical and social needs. The benefit ultimately lies in their parents being compliant with society. That it looks kinky to us on the outside doesn't mean the arrangement isn't as fraught with anxieties for them as our arrangements are for us. Though if social evolution occurs at all, it would tend to sort out people whose mental tendencies would make the arrangements a problem.

[This message has been edited by pooka (edited August 11, 2006).]


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hoptoad
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I agree Pooka. If there was no room for problems it would be a really, really boring setting for a story.

I do need a good, strong reason for them to share their secrets, at this stage it looks like disaffected single males posing a threat to an isolated 'homestead.' Perhaps this is too predictable -- or perhaps a group of single males who have concluded that they have no chance of ever marrying, decide to 'marry' each other and form a sort of family of 'household'and then decide they need a homestead... somewhere isolated where they may avoid scrutiny

What do you think?

The reason I said, ship out the boys when they begin to talk' is the secret language factor. However, reconsidering, if the woam can refrain from speaking their language around grown men, there's no reason that they can't refrain around their sons too. Perhaps puberty is also the time young girls learn the secret language.

[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited August 11, 2006).]


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wbriggs
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Certainly toddlers aren't great at keeping secrets!

I like the idea of the secret language being part of the puberty-time initiation thing.

The males setting up a household: reminds me of "bachelor wolves," who hunt together, before they find mates. Better not call it "marrying," though -- your young men will be offended!

Turning bandit? Interesting. However, I suspect they won't be just bandits, they'll be rapists and murderers, too.

Breaking the secrets: it might be easier to know why they must be broken if we know why they must be kept. Here are some secrets I know of and why they must be kept.

Masonic rituals: Masons like to be able to recognize each other; the secrets have no real value to outsiders anyway.

Your bank account: privacy

Movies, novels, and what happens at certain intense experiental workshops: if we told you in advance, it would spoil your enjoyment

Military secrets: our enemies might kill our soldiers or citizens

Blackmail, keeping up public appearances . . .

The Carib women, IIRC, had a secret language they didn't tell the men. I don't know what they got out of it. It dated back to when the men invaded their village, killed *their* men, and took them away into forced marriage. The secret language was just their old one.

Is their magic in your story? Maybe having the opposite sex speak your language has a magical effect. Maybe it stops your spells from being effective. If the spells were being used for E-vil, that would be a good reason to break the secrecy. (But wouldn't a woman have leaked this to a man already, if she thought her leaders were up to no good? And v. versa.) Maybe the cost of weakening the magic is also very severe to the leaker, in some way, or to her people.


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Aust Alien
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I have heard that some Aust Aboriginal groups had secret languages or at least secret words that only men or women knew. I don't know much about that.
However, the Arrernte people and other desert peoples in central Aust do live with the men and women having their own secrets. The infamous "secret women's business" around the Hindmarch Bridge some years back is an example.
Definitely the boys were raised by their Grandmothers until they were about 8-10. Then they lived with the other boys and were raised chiefly by their Grandfathers. Once they left the women's care they were no longer allowed to touch coolaman's or digging stick. Women couldn't touch a spear or a woomera. They did live together in family units most of the time(but this was a lot more complicated) but at other times they were separated from each other. Bear in mind that these weren't polyandric.

I think the Masai are often polyandric. The woman marries into the family. However, she sleeps only with the eldest brother until she has born him a child. Then she sleeps only with the second eldest and so on. Not sure why. Too me it seems that that would reduce your gene pool a bit, as the eldest brothers would tend to have the most kids.


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quidscribis
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Polyandry is legal and acceptable in Sri Lanka. Whether or not it's currently practiced, I don't know. I'll spell out the conditions.

Sri Lanka is Sinhalese/Buddhist (about 71%), Tamil/Hindu (about 14%), Moor/Muslim (about 7%), Dutch Burgher/Christian (about 7%), 1% other (which includes Veddah/indigenous people).

Marriage laws in this country are dependant on the religion of the male. Since my husband is Muslim, we can get married/divorced according to Muslim law. That I am Christian is irrelevant.

The Kandyan kingdom is one exception to this - it's dependant on the ancestry of the woman. If the woman is of Kandyan descent, then Kandyan law applies and the woman can take more than one husband. Here's the catch - all husbands must be brothers.

I believe the theory behind this is that this way, it's guaranteed that all family property will stay in the family. They don't particularly track who's the father because it doesn't matter from the property/inheritance perspective.

So, yes, one real world example.

Polygamy is also legal in this country - Muslim law. According to law, my husband could take three more wives. He actually has two uncles (uncle being a loose translation of relative of some sort of unclehood - could be a great uncle - I'm really not sure) who both have two wives. By all accounts, the marriages work very well and all parties concerned are happy and content.


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chemo_man
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maybe if you had somesort of birthmark that is is passed on from the male, make it unique, and all they would have to do is match it up with the father.
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Survivor
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You need to consider how prevalent and dangerous "cheating" is going to be in your system.

You say that a man has the option of agreeing to accept being a "father" to a child. He then moves to a higher status village and is taxed some portion of his labor to support "his" wife and child(ren). So aren't the "husband" villagers going to be a lot poorer (materially) than the "bachelor" villagers? Sure, they have higher status, but that's all they actually get. What is to keep guys from claiming the privilage of staying in the bachelor village forever and contributing nothing to the upkeep of the women and children? What is to keep the bachelors from setting up their own status system, in which a guy gains status by refusing many requests to become a husband? After all, all the other guys can see that guy working the system, getting plenty of children and not having to give up anything in return. Any guy getting away with it will have plenty of admiring imitators. How do you even keep guys from defecting from the husband village? They could claim inability to contribute or deception on the part of the wife. Or they could just leave and join the restless young men who wander from village to village.

How do the women socially dominate the men if they don't live together? How do they prevent rapes and other violent crimes by unattached men? Given that the males are raised in sex segregated "creches", how do the women detach their primary loyalty from their peer group? This sounds like a formula for producing proto-Spartans, with all that implies.

To me, it seems that you've got a system that couldn't evolve naturally or sustain itself unless the women are generally fairly powerful magic users. That might be, since you're positing a fantasy setup here, but you also seem to suggest that the magic isn't inherent in women but is something that they have to learn and guard. In which case, the system is always one diligent spy away from total (and violent) collapse.

Cheating happens in every social system. A viable social system has to be able to survive and then punish dangerous cheating. I don't think that your system can do either. Not as you've described it thus far.


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Sara Genge
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The men who are "married" would be poorer... not if women owned all the good farming land. The "men's village" could be mostly hunters-gatherers. In order to have access to agriculture and have something to put away for the winter, a man must be married. This would work very well if women controlled all the seed-grain. The big "secret" might just be giving men seed-grain

How do women avoid rape? They gang up on men who rape them or try to rape them. Women aren't that much weaker than men. If a guy has to take on two women he's probably going to lose. If the men, who are poorer and thus probably less numerous than women try to attack a village of women, they'd better think they have a very good new weapon. In many societies the gender split isn't exactly 50-50. Usually there's about 52% women. Men die more frequently before the age of 7 and afterwards they are more vulnerable to accident and illness. If women are privileged compared to men, and have "secrets" they probably have better food, they warm up their homes in winter and they have some primitive form of medicine that men ignore. They charge the "single" men for seting bones and curing desease (that's also why the "single" men want to get married)
Most rapists suffer some severe injuries in the process, specially if they're serial rapists. Chimp females gang up on the males to get what they want, be it food, or to get the guy to stop battering a kid-chimp. Although males have supremacy, it's kept in check when it gets out of hand.

OK, that's all the brainstorming I can do for now.


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Survivor
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quote:
In order to have access to agriculture and have something to put away for the winter, a man must be married.

You're trying to say that the women are deliberately putting the mobile, youthful male population below the subsistance level. That has never worked in the history of the universe and it never will. You can sometimes starve women, children, and old men to death without fighting an all-out war with them. You cannot starve young males. They get hungry, they get damn aggressive.

quote:
Women aren't that much weaker than men.

You are living in a fantasy world. You've never had to fight a man who was taking it even half seriously. Movies and television notwithstanding, the average man can easily take on three or four average women in a physical fight. The most sexually aggressive young males are also likely to be in upper range for strength, which skews the ratio even further. And there is no reason to suppose that rapists won't move in gangs, historically, this has usually been the case.

If the women have all the resources, including medical care, there's just that much more motivation for the outcast males to raid them for what they want. They can (and would) kidnapp a medicine woman or two. Getting her back alive without negotiating would be all but impossible.

Chimp females have dominant males living in the group with them, and those dominant males do most of the fighting to protect the group from outsiders.


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hoptoad
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Sorry, I've been occupied over the weekend.
Thanks for the fantastic points raised. The 'how to avoid the gangs of aggressive males' question has been bothering me.

Survivor is right on every point he raised. There are some real problems, but I want to work through them. I have only a rough ideas how to do that right now. There needs to be a powerful psychological reason as well as magical reason for the single males' and their society keeping themselves in check. I'm open to suggestions on this.

Keeping young men hungry and powerless is a powderkeg. There may, however, be places where they can get free meals, shrines and the like, administered by widowed husbands or something.

[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited August 13, 2006).]


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Aust Alien
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quote:
You cannot starve young males. They get hungry, they get damn aggressive.

quote:
Keeping young men hungry and powerless is a powderkeg.

These are good points and will lead to social collapse. But not necessarily immediately. A system like this might be unstable, but last a couple of generations before collapsing. Mentioning this because it might add a good dimension to your story. Of course, such a system would have to have derived from a more stable system, but due to some revolutionary event (eg religious upheaval, a female monarch decides it’s a good idea etc) it comes into play.


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Sara Genge
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A man can take on three or four women at a time? Yeah, if he's a marine in which case the women would be too. I've practiced some unarmed combat. The class had adults and kids. On several occasions I fought ten and twelve year olds. I'll grant you that I wasn't trying to hurt them, but being attacked from two angles at the same time is very difficult to counter. These kids were just starting, and I had more than a few years of training. We work with strict rules, so that was probably to their advantage since I couldn't do any of the nasty stuff that a cornered person can do to get out. But still, I remember the experience as uncomfortable. I spent most of my time avoinding getting surrounded, and that was just two or three kids.
Movies not withstanding, when the "good" guy is up against a gang, the gang would win in real life.
I agree that shoving men off the survival plateu would do more harm than good.
Another way they could use to artificially have more women than men is to kill some male babies at birth. Population growth is limited by the number of females (unless there are almost no males), but that would severely hurt their work-force. If you do that your readers will root with the single males immediately. And some might put the book down. Imagine you had that unstable social system... maybe it's unstable because they stopped killing male babies? The "old" system worked because they did that. They stopped because they came on rough times and they needed food that wasn't dependant on crops, ie meat. Men are typically the hunters in a tribe...or because women don't like killing babies or something.

Why not turn this on its head? A single man will pay to sleep with a woman with meat (protein makes the world go round if you believe some sociologists) It's not considered "pay" but a "gift"... but if he stops giving it, he doesn't get any. When a kid is born, it might be cheaper to support the woman and kid and marry than keep paying.

I'm in a horrible mindset today.

[This message has been edited by Sara Genge (edited August 14, 2006).]

[This message has been edited by Sara Genge (edited August 14, 2006).]


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pooka
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quote:
Women aren't that much weaker than men.

As evidenced by the fact that rape almost never happens in the real world [/sarcasm]

What about a taboo that only women can have weapons? Or small, short women have been bred out of the culture along with overly tall/strong men? What would the reason for this be, since cultural tendencies must to some degree validate personal choice? (That may sound wrong, it was a less extreme way of saying personal choice dictates the form of cultural tendencies). It could be that large men are seen as unintelligent and not really human, where a large woman is seen in the normal way as a good provider.

Maybe they are vegetarian and hunting is devalued, and the cast off men hunt and eat meat. Another possibility is women become the virtual gods of this society by knowing how and jealously guarding the secret of making cheese.

[This message has been edited by pooka (edited August 14, 2006).]


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Sara Genge
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Pooka: how often does a man try to rape two women at the same time? Women are weaker, that's obvious, what I meant is that, despite Hollywood movies, the crowd always wins.

They can jelously guard the secret of a super drug that makes them into Xenas... that would be fun

[This message has been edited by Sara Genge (edited August 14, 2006).]


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Survivor
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Sara, you're comparing your experience with (formalized) combat against multiple slightly weaker opponents, none of whom have anything to fear, with a raw melee combat against multiple far weaker opponents who can't easily inflict a lot of damage and risk death.

Granted, I'm a little off the curve in hand to hand capabilities, but I'm not totally off the scale or anything. Men generally totally discount women in a fight. That is underestimating their combat potential, but not by as much as you might think. You might be able to punch me well enough to score a point in the sparring ring, but in a real fight I will shrug off almost any blow you can land unless you hit my groin, throat, or eyes pretty accurately. A normal human male will have more vulnerable spots and feel more pain, but not enough to give you a chance.

I only see one workable solution, the married men must live in the village with the women and be armed and organized. The unmarried men must have their basic needs met. Sure, the female can have areas (even pretty big areas) which are taboo for the men, but they need them for defense. This also makes it possible for the women to influence them socially. You'll note that an essential characteristic of the Spartan system (and most effective "barracks" societies) was to keep the men from living with women. This bolsters male oriented social behaviors such as aggression, competition, and physical intimidation.

If you need to cut down on male population for some reason or other, the best way is to encourage the young unmarried male's inherrent proclivity for dangerous activities. This could be ritual combats, "quests", war, or any number of things. You could require that a male kill a rival in honorable combat to become a "man", eligible to court women. That would cut your male population down by at least half and disrupt the normal peer group association (the gang mentality). You could require the males to undertake some dangerous task to become men. This could cut down your male population by a variable amount and could also serve as a "revenue" source for the village (presuming the object of the quest had some intrinsic value). You could also have the women leading the men in war, with their husbands forming a non-com/personal guard for the female officers and the unmarrieds as grunts competing for commendations and honors. This is probably the actual system used by the Amazons, if they were as proficient in war as generally depicted. Young males will take insane risks to impress females, it's coded into their DNA. A female officer corp would be highly motivating to an army of males accustomed to matriarchal control.

You can't have the women killing babies, though. That causes problems.

Darn italic tags.

[This message has been edited by Survivor (edited August 14, 2006).]


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Survivor
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By the way, in asking about multiple victim rape, you need to consider only cases where the rapist doesn't have to worry about the extra women running off and getting help (from a man). If you look only at those cases, you'll find that a rapist actually will attack groups of females by preference.

As far as Xena and other "warrior woman" fantasies, one thing to consider is that these appeal to men more than they do to women. There are several obvious factors, the warrior woman is always super-hot, generally scantily clad, sexually aggressive, often has a hot girlfriend or two, and so on. But the core of it is probably the intrinsic appeal of fantasy, warrior women are like elven maidens or girl-bots or triple breasted aliens, they exist outside of the social realities of marriage. Even if you do marry a warrior woman, it's not like you end up taking on those pesky responsibilities for her welfare.


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sholar
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In my old neighborhood, there were a bunch of sexual assaults. The only one that failed was when a guy decided to try for two women. The two of them were more than enough protection. Of course, choosing women jogging home from the gym may not have been the smartest plan either. But it was much discussed because the girls finally won one and that felt good.
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kings_falcon
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In If I Pay Thee Not in Gold By Mercedes Lacky and Peirs Anthony the society was matriarchal because only women could use magic.

In Firebrand the old mother earth societies were matriarchal because only a woman would dare remove the fruit of the earth from its womb. For a man to do so was to risk a blight/famine. The matriarchal society fell when men decided to use brute strength and cities against the women's religous myth.

In 1984 Big Brother controlled the people by controlling the language and the assets of the society. The "free" people, the Prols, were so busy worried about survival that they couldn't organize. The subjects of Big Brother were eliminated if they questioned the system.

I don't think you can solely use force to subject any gender/species/race to a lesser or slave like status without eventually having that society overturned or changed when the "have nots" figure out they are more numerous/stronger/whatever. What you can do is create a reason to hold the power in a certain group, the If I Pay Thee type of world, or get them to buy into the fact that they are incompetent and someone else must make the decisions, the 1984 type world.


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hoptoad
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I know Pooka was joking about making the women gods but, coupled with Kings' Falcon comments, it suggested a couple of things that address some of the problems, (And I thank you all for bearing with the lengthy entries):

The society believes in spirits. In certain respects, women and spirits are equals, in other ways they are lesser and in still more ways the are greater than spirits. Spirits associate with them and assist them. Some spirits are those of female ancestors others are unborn female children, some are sentient nature spirits.

Men, on the other hand, were made by the spirits. They are made from an elemental base finely balanced with an admixture of spirit ( lower-case S ) and housed in a body. They are not even close to being equals with Spirits ( capital S ) or with women. They were made to be strong and to fight and to farm and to work. If they want the spirits' assistance, they need to constantly petition them. They have a ritualised and ceremonial society.

The secret language is the language of the spirits. Men are considered incapable of comprehending it. (Similar to how women were deemed incapable of comprehending latin in 18thC western countries.)

To offend a spirit is to cut yourself off from any assistance.

To be rejected by one's creators means that you become subject to the whims of the elemental spirits from which you are made. These elemental spirits are impersonal and predatory. They are brutish, violent, greedy, unpredictable, rapacious and terrifying beings. They have no real bodies or inferior temporary ones of mud or wood or air or whatever. They are constantly coveting the superior 'created' bodies of men.

Key to this idea: If a man even begins to act like an elemental, the other men become very suspicious that an elemental is gaining sway over him. It is holy and redemptive to kill a man who has been given over to the elemental spirits. In so doing you have both deprived the elemental of a body and removed a weak and easily influenced man.

The society of husbands has a role to play here too and I like the idea that they may form an armed guard for the women. The husbands can be extremely aggressive to any young man they believe to be under the influence of an elemental spirit, and assiduous in seeking them out. Husbands are afforded more protection by the spirits than ordinary men.

The magic works, I guess it must. Now for the price of magic for the women.

Thoughts?

[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited August 15, 2006).]


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pooka
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I wasn't kidding about cheesemaking being a god-like power. I could see taking on the mark of the beast to keep my access to cheese.

And obviously the reason women didn't learn Latin or mathematics in the 18 c. is because it was reasonably hard, and when you believe you can't do something, it is hard to do.

But then the question arises, are you going to build this house of cards just to topple it?


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hoptoad
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No.
At least I don't think so.
I want the society to work and that is why I am working on it.
The two main characters are both outsiders though.

PS: What if the devil made you choose between cheese and chocolate?

[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited August 15, 2006).]


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hoptoad
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Seriously though, the idea of some sort of medicine or narcotic (cheeselike material ) that is manufactured by or in some other way controlled by the women may be an option too.

[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited August 15, 2006).]


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Beth
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"Obey me, Man, or you will get no cheese tonight!"

The man wept. "Anything. I'll do anything."


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Pyre Dynasty
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quote:
What if the devil made you choose between cheese and chocolate?

I'd go to the store, why would I want evil cheese or chocolate?


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hoptoad
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Is there another kind?

Now we are way off thread.


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