From: Alex Ferguson (abf@cs.ucc.ie)
Date: Thu 13 Jul 2000 - 02:30:44 EEST
David Dunham, replies:
> >I have a legal judgement made
> >against me. (Let's finesse for now the issue of whether formally
> >it's against me personally, my bloodline, or my clan -- I'm
> >getting the blame for it, practically speaking.) If I'm
> >destitute, stubborn, deceased, or otherwise unwilling or unable to
> >stump up myself, who precisely has to pay on my behalf?
> Ignoring the possibility that the judgement may be tribal (in which
> case your clan may be ultimately liable)
That's the case I'm primarily thinking of, actually. Or even in
non-tribal cases, any instance where the dispute is between
(people of) two different clans. Within a clan, I see it as being
much more fast and loose: clan chief (or the ring) dispenses some
Obvious Compromise and/or The Judgement of Solomon, and sooner
or later the squabbling dies down.
> the answer would be your bloodline, i.e. family.
Well, bloodline is a kinship relation, to be sure, but 'family'
seems a tad misleading, or at least hopelessly vague, here.
My 'family' is an informal grouping of my closest kin I'd
at least _hope_ would aid and support me; my bloodline is
a formally-defined group that there's a good deal less telling
about...
> In East Ralios this is defined essentially as a derbhfine;
That's cool (and reasonably clear: I at least _think_ I understand
how a derbhfine works, however self-deludingly...). Well, apart from
the unusual spelling of Delela, which I think we can chalk up as
Irreconciliably Entrenched Positions, at this stage. (I presume
Halikiv isn't really at issue...) Perhaps it's true also that
bloodline, by such a definition, is relatively more important
compared to the clan, as compared to the Heortling situation.
(As I think Ian Cooper was suggesting, in this case or some other
similar one...)
> Heortling society I'm less clear (but I think that's partly because
> it's less precise). Probably the head of your bloodline (presumably
> the oldest surviving male) is ultimately responsible. He'd allocate
> payment among the members of the bloodline (or pay out of bloodline
> property).
I think it's less clear not because of any inherent fuzziness
in the legal precedents, but because the bloodline per se has no
role to play in such cases. Thus finessing the need to presuppose
a bloodline head, and bloodline property, mysteriously unmentioned
to date, unlike the Big Deal made of the formal leadership of a
clan, and collective property thereof.
I'm not saying, let me add though, that a judgement could only
ever be against a whole clan, or an individual, and nothing in
between. By no means. I certainly think the clan big-wigs can
demand that an infractor's kin make good for his malfeasances:
but I don't think that's a corporate function of a bloodline.
Rather, it would fall to his closest kin (as measured by degree of
direct blood relationship, though also with consideration of who
lives in whose stead, etc) to do so, at least in the first
instance. Progressively less related persons have less of an
obligation to stump up, likely in a very vague way. (As in both
that they're less likely to have this demanded of them, and
they're less likely to comply, if it is...)
Cheers,
Alex.
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End of The Glorantha Digest V7 #758
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