Marriage

Marriage is a formal legal and religious arrangement between two Dynasts, which produces legitimate children and ties two families together from there forward. Marriages are the vital glue that keeps the Dynasty connected together.

Most marriages are exogamous, taking place between families hailing from different Great Houses. Endogamous marriages, between two families in the same Great House, are uncommon, but not unheard-of; generally, they take place in order to unify branches that are in danger of splitting from the House.

Because the Houses are so intermarried with one another, most couples are able to trace back to a shared ancestor many, many generations ago. Marriages between first cousins happen occasionally, but generally only for extremely important arrangements like daughters of matriarchs. A majority of couples are further than second cousins from one another.

Arrangement

Arranging a marriage is a big affair involving several important people from one’s Great House. First and foremost, the matriarch traditionally approves all marriages for the House’s Chosen scions – in some Houses like Ledaal this is normally a stamp on the work of the House’s matchmakers, but in others, most famously House Mnemon, the matriarch might herself be the one arranging the marriage.

Matchmaking traditionally begins when the Dynast enters her 20s. The matchmakers will begin to arrange genealogies and chronicles of great deeds, hoping to get a favorable match. Throughout her 20s, the scion will be pulled away by her uncle to many “casual meetings” with prospective husbands, to gauge the marriage’s prospects. Star charts and other divinatory methods are drawn up to ensure the marriage is most likely to produce heirs.

Although love is not a primary consideration in most marriages, compatibility is. Matchmakers have always known that spouses that get along with one another are most successful. Passionate love isn’t required, but generally, matchmakers attempt to make pairs that are amicable and friendly. The scion’s preferences are noted, and accomodated where possible – after all, everyone knows it’s best to keep the elemental demigods in good spirits – but are ultimately secondary to the House’s needs.

The Tyranny of Uncles

Matchmakers are an extremely important element of Dynastic society, and a class of people with extreme social influence but little technical power. A matchmaker has no formal ability to influence a House’s policies and no official standing in the ministries with which to enact change; but in truth, their power is wide-reaching and omnipresent within elite circles. Every decision is made with an awareness of how it might impact the House’s marital prospects, and at the heart of all of it is the matchmakers.

A stereotypical matchmaker is your uncle, round-faced and mustachioed, with a hearty laugh and a fanatical interest in gossip. This stereotype is somewhat accurate, as matchmaking is one of the most influential careers that men in the Dynasty can really excel at. Men are viewed as effective matchmakers because of their deeper emotional wisdom and the man’s gift at seeing compatible relationships. Female matchmakers are no less common, but generally are not what come to mind.

Collectively, the process of matchmaking is sometimes referred to as the Tyranny of Uncles: a set of distant relatives planning your life from then forward. They are going to sit you down with a dozen prospects, pester you endlessly about your star charts, subject you to a hundred boring parties and subtle tests, and then eventually choose the person you will spend the rest of your life occasionally dealing with. It can feel oppressive, but it is something that all Dynasts simply learn to live with.

Children

After they are married, Dynasts are expected to produce children. The demand for children isn’t immediate, but it is omnipresent. The purpose of marriage is to perpetuate the families; all else is secondary, in the long term.

Generally, a Dynastic couple is expected to attempt to produce children about once every fifteen to twenty years. From time immemorial, the Chosen have known that one’s progenitive Essence takes time to accumulate. In the first few years after conceiving a child, one accumulates almost no progenitive Essence; and then, it accumulates increasingly. Children born within 10 years of an Exalted child are unlikely to Exalt; these “leftover children” are often ignored because they likely will not draw the dragon’s breath. A couple who has another child within ten years is overly reckless; a couple who produces no new child within 20 is pressured to get on it and make a baby.

Dynastic pregnancies are often dangerous to observers. Hormones and tensions rage: fights break out, fire arcs from fingertips, trees crack beneath Chosen fists… Windows are shattered and statues go flying. Pregnancy in the Chosen lasts for nine months, as with all humans, but only hinders one’s movement in the last six weeks or so – before that, the mother is as powerful as she has ever been, and combined with the pressures of pregnancy, often more dangerous than she has ever been before.

Being in the same room as a Dragon-Blooded giving birth can be detrimental to your health. Tradition holds that, in the weeks leading up to the birth, the mother should retreat to somewhere quiet – like a hunting lodge, an alpine retreat, or down to the beach. Birth itself is a private affair featuring a trained midwife, the best that the House can afford.

The mother returns to society about a month after giving birth, which is usually around the same time as the baby’s dubbing.

Separation

Marriage is a long-term but not permanent arrangement. Although divorce is not common, it is certainly not unheard of. Divorce bears the stigma of squandering the House’s investment, but – especially when the party is not to blame for the divorce – just as often pity and mourning.

Probably the most positive reason for divorce is monasticism. Should one of the couple be accepted as a monk, she must sever her familial ties, including getting divorced from her spouse. Of all causes for divorce, this is the one which no one thinks twice about. The family will negotiate a new marriage for the non-monastic spouse, which can often be difficult the older she is, but there is no stigma for such an arrangement.

Most non-monastic divorces are based on infidelity. Public acknowledgement that a spouse has been unfaithful by engaging in extramarital affairs with other Dynasts of similar station is grounds for a separation, and can be initiated by either party. The case is brought before a judge, who determines whether or not sufficient harm was brought against the House that the terms of the initial marriage contract are rendered moot. If so, the marriage is stricken from the register and both participants are able to be remarried – although the adulterer is going to have a hard time finding someone to marry.

Lastly, failure to produce heirs is grounds for a divorce, filed by either the participants or, sometimes, the Houses themselves. Should a marriage persist for a full thirty years with no children, and a judge determine that no reasonable effort has been made to produce children pursuant to the terms of the marriage agreement, then the marriage can be terminated.

Paper Daughters

In order to avoid the scandal of extramarital children, divorce, and the whole shebang of infidelity, the Great Houses unofficially practice a tradition of so-called paper daughters. Despite the Dynasty’s best attempts to prevent it, children do occur in unfavorable circumstances. Rather than go public with such admissions, many Great Houses arrange for the bastard child to be placed with a couple. The mother wears a pillow to fake a pregnancy, and eventually the child is “born” and no one outside is the wiser.