From: Bryan J. Maloney (jacobus@sonata.cc.purdue.edu)
Date: Tue 05 Jul 1994 - 11:18:07 EEST
This is something that I wish more people on this list were aware of (a few are). By and large, men aren't very useful for most things in a preindustrial world. They can lift heavy stuff, and fight if there's danger, but there's no point in having any more of them around than absolutely necessary. Thus, men are warriors, because they're expendible. Kill a man, and you've just killed a man. His breeding potential can be replaced by another man and the rate of reproduction doesn't diminish. Kill a woman, and THEN you've created a reproductive disaster.
Also, regardless of the macho schoolboy fantasies of many people, in any "hunting" society, it's the women who procure most of the food. The same is often true of pastoral societies. In the former, meat is a lot of effort to get. In the latter, killing off your herds for food can't be done too often (you lose your sources of wool, dung, milk, etc.). Of course, bulls can be slaughtered and eaten without causing too much trauma to the herd. So long as you have a few left over for breeding.
I would even venture to say that the Praxians have similar divisions, although there is less non-meat food in a Praxian diet than in any other diet of Glorantha or Earth. The women care for the herds. I'd even venture to say that if anyone "owns" the herds, it would be the WOMEN of Prax, not the men. (After all, Eiritha is the herd mother, Waha is her SON.) Men are necessary for defense and raiding (their powers of death) but women are the keepers of the herds and all means of production (the powers of life).
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.7 : Fri 10 Oct 2003 - 01:35:42 EEST