From: Ian Cooper (ian_hammond_cooper@yahoo.co.uk)
Date: Mon 04 Sep 2000 - 16:25:28 EEST
This posting does not seem to have made it. I'll try
again, hopefully the comments are not too out of date,
I'll answer some other points raised since separately
(however on isogamous - yes I did mean endogamous.
Apologies nto sure where my use of isogamous came
from)
John Hughes
>KOS makes several unambigous statements on exogamy.
(KOS? unambiguous?!
>Marriage Issues - " Clans are exogamous, and the
wives must come from
>someplace else."
>Bloodline, Family, Household - "Bloodlines are
exogamous, which means
>that members of the same bloodline can never marry or
have sex with each
>other."
OK, my confusion here is that if we believe that a
clan can consist of more than one bloodline (i.e. clan
<> bloodline) then the second statement seems to allow
different bloodlines within the clan to exchange
marriage partners (prsumably it does not relate to
prohibitions against cosanguinity between clans as the
'bloodline' is the patrilineal descent group). There
is an argument that at times this must have occurred
(i.e. the Colymar during the early period of the
colonisation of Dragon Pass. KoS is 'historical'
document, if it gives us too many problems we could
favour the bloodline exogamy (which does not exclude
clan exogamy). Perhaps clan 'exogamy' is the most
virtuous state to aspire to like a marriage of equals,
but not always possible.
Alex Ferguson
On 'corporate' applied to agnatic kin-group or stead.
>John H. is though, when he uses 'bloodline' in this
sort of manner,
>or so it appears to me, at least.
Not sure, perhaps John can clarify.
>> In addition there is the corporate agnatic
kin-group
>> also called 'the descending kindred'. The
patrilineal
>> descent group of which your bloodline forms a part.
>OK, now I'm confused. If the two aren't _identical_,
what's the
>particular sense of the distinction?
See below
>A bloodline surely _is_ an agnatic descent-group
(though no one ever bothers to define them
>in threads such as this, which doesn't help matters)
OK, I agree with both parts of this statement
Generally immediate kindred (i.e. a derhfine) are out
to 2nd cousin ('the five men'), your agnatic kin-group
(the fine, which I am equating with bloodline) out to
4th cousin ('the seventeen men'). Vertically to
grandfather in both cases. My agnatic kin-group is
not the same as my brothers (his includes me (ego mine
him), my 2nd cousins is even less the same as mine
(his 4th cousins are not mine) etc. Any agnatic
kin-group is as unique as a fingerprint. This is the
personal kindred. However we all have common
patrilineal line (my cousin and I share a grandfather
on the male line) and this is our 'descending
kindred'. It may be bigger than my or his personal
agnatic kindred - it includes my cousins fourth
cousins.
The difference is in mainly between the personal
kindred being those who are in line for inheritance,
weregild etc. and the 'descending kindred' being the
collection of those interrelations. One lineage will
tend to dominate be the spine of the 'corporate fine'
although which lineage may shift.
>the point we're disagreeing on is simply whether it
_is_ in fact corporate.
>(And implicitly we may be disagreeing on _which_
agnatic descent-
>group is normally considered to be one's bloodline
qua bloodline,
>but IMO that's highly variable anyway.)
Agreed on the fiction of bloodline.
Nerys Patterson
"The genealogical principles of the fine, however,
were a constant casualty of the competitive social
system so that no fine could consistently align actual
descent with actual status, or real genealogical
connections with actual social relationships.
Genealogies, then, were faked (not all the time, of
course), and served the ideology of political
relations which were legitimised through assertions of
'true' descent."
The 'descending kindred is referred to as 'corporate'
because it is a socio-economic unit- property is
inherited within it, passes beyond it through
weregild/fines, acts a surety for cattle-loans etc.
controls the behaviour of individuals, supports
dependants etc.
In small clans there probably is only one, or one
dominant 'corporate fine', but the size of many
Orlanthi clans seem to be about 500-1000 individuals.
IMHO this implies a number of 'descending kindreds'
within a clan (they may have a common ancestor, but
beyond the edge of the 'corporate fine' that
relationship is not significant in law).
On clan membership of wives
>Well, that _was_ what the entire thread was about...
True, I have strayed :-(
I was trying to suggest what the socio-economic
position was of a woman once she entered a bloodline
by marriage. There are I think two issues 1:) Her
position within the bloodline which she marries into
(socio-economic) and her relationship to the clan
(spiritual/political). My last post mainly concerns
the former, I'll mention the latter later.
> The stead may be 'co-operative'
> but it is also 'corporate' because the household
> employs the capital that belongs to the kin-group.
>You repeatedly assured me you weren't speaking of
steads, but of
>bloodlines, but here you explicitly equate the two.
Sorry I think I muddied the waters here.
A household is an economically co-operative unit, a
bloodline is a corporate unit, the two may be
distinct, and membership of a household is dynamic a
bloodline 'static' (well 'static' not counting
newborns or Orlanthi 85% exceptions). However the
capital used in the stead is the property of one or
more bloodlines (agreed the land belongs to the clan),
who thus have a 'corporate' interest in its welfare
(not necessarily implying common ownership, but wealth
that will be inherited my members of the fine).
>I think the issue here is at root simply this: is it
true to say
>that a stead corresponds to a derbhfine, or something
a lot like
>a derbhfine (specifically that of the
'stead-holder'), which is what
>is meant when one says 'bloodline'?
A household may not even be a derhfine, but I suspect
in many cases it is (for example Njal in Njal' Saga
steads with his sons and their wives). A derhfine is
not a family either, although families exist within
one, it is a legal unit of responsibility, you most
immediate guarantors or protectors or patrons or
clients. However for me the closest analogy to a
bloodline is not a derhfine but a 'corporate fine'.
>Again I claim: not always possible to do, and IMO
you're
>imputing the corporate character to the wrong one.
We might agree on this portion at least now that I
have been a bit clearer.
To return to the clan issue:
Putting aside a woman's economic position in the clan
as being a bloodline issue I'm left with two key
issues: a woman's involvement in the spiritual life of
the clan and her involvement in the power structures
of the clan (can she attend wapentake, could she be
elected to the ring, can she become a priestess).
If we are exogamous your sisters will be married
outside the clan, your mother will have come from
outside the clan. There will be some
widows/divorcees/spinsters in the clan, but are
there enough clan born women resident on the tula
enough to fulfill the spiritual/political obligations
of the clan for provide the benefits of Ernalda etc.?
I suspect not. Ernalda came from outside the Storm
Tribe so there is a precedent for the Ernalda
worshipper to be from another tribe. Practically I
suspect that worship would have to include these
people.
If most of the Ernalda worshippers are from outside
the clan could they rise to positions of power within
it? We might restrict the priesthood to the old, the
divorced and the widowed, but I suspect that it is
unlikely to provide enough candidates (except for
'barren' earthcults). Provided a woman has a vested
interest in the clan's well-being (i.e. she is
significant to one of its bloodlines as a wife of
equal partnership or the mother of one if its sons
(not so clear if she only has daughters) then there
would be no reason not to trust her with such a
position (this changes of course if her status in the
bloodline changes).
If she can rise in the religious hierarchy then she
would be a candidate for the ring - her loyalty is
obviously decided by the people at the wapentake. Now
it seems unlikely that unless we considered her part
of our clan we would allow her on the ring, so it
suggest she would have clan membership.
So clan membership would probably be open to those the
bloodline considered full members, (and if they are
members can vote at the wapentake).
Of course if endogamous marriage is more prevalent we
might have sufficient candidates within the clan to
remove this problem We could then suggest that women
from outside the clan play no part in it spower
structures. However that would weaken those who take
an 'ideal' path (though they would of course have
influence over their husbands which might be their way
instead). That would be my preference, I guess those
4th age historians just got a couple of facts muddled.
Ian
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