A Question About Marriage

First, let me start off by saying this has nothing to do with gay marriage or any other sensitive issues.

I have a question about the origins of marriage within the world of Hydaelyn. After reading about some of the naming conventions for the races, it seems that most might make use of the ceremony in their culture. Miqo'te are the only ones who seem (at least to me) not to have any use for the ceremony.

So my question is, where did the ceremony of matrimony originate? Or is matrimony not a part of the lore at all and merely being fitted in for those who asked for it?

And are Tias allowed to get married? Are they not allowed to be intimate with their wife? Is intimacy permitted if it's a non-seeker he takes as his bride? Is that considered betraying his duty to his clan? Inquiring minds want to know!

Was there literally any mention of marriage in 1.0? Like, do we have anything to work on whatsoever?

Well, going on nothing, my idea would be something like...

'Traditional' marriage, lifelong monogamy between one male and one female, is probably an elezen invention inspired by the divine love between Menphina and Oschon. The symbol of Oschon, a walking stick, is probably involved; maybe the groom hands his staff to the priest, as if to say, "My journey is over because I've reached my destination." Hyur marriages would often be an imperfect copy of the elezen, though there's probably a whole other set of traditions from Ala Mhigo that are just as ancient.

Dunesfolk are nomads, they would have forager-type values. There would be no formal marriages and children would be raised by multi-generational families with grandparents and the like. Plainsfolk are farmers, so they'd need lots of kids, meaning everybody is expected to get married, probably at a very young age.

Roegadyn, it's hard to say. Sea wolves would not be happy to 'settle down' unless they thought they'd accomplished all they could in their lives, so marriage would be more like saying "Welp, I'm done, time to get old," not really something to celebrate. Hellsguard we know next to nothing about. It's probably something weird and ritualistic, like marriages last exactly 8 years and then you're not supposed to talk to them ever again.

Just my little ideas.

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Originally Posted by aviha

'Traditional' marriage, lifelong monogamy between one male and one female, is probably an elezen invention inspired by the divine love between Menphina and Oschon.

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This is what I thought as well. Elezen seem the most likely to be it's origin.

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Originally Posted by Maldalewyn

First, let me start off by saying this has nothing to do with gay marriage or any other sensitive issues.

I have a question about the origins of marriage within the world of Hydaelyn. After reading about some of the naming conventions for the races, it seems that most might make use of the ceremony in their culture. Miqo'te are the only ones who seem (at least to me) not to have any use for the ceremony.

So my question is, where did the ceremony of matrimony originate? Or is matrimony not a part of the lore at all and merely being fitted in for those who asked for it?

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I'd assume that marriage is not a native Miqo'te custom, but rather one that Miqo'te who leave the tribe participate in. Therefore, a Tia male from the sunseeker tribe who left to join modern civilization could very well become a husband. As far as who first practiced matrimony in the traditional sense, we have no clue (as of yet).

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Originally Posted by Deakka

I'd assume that marriage is not a native Miqo'te custom, but rather one that Miqo'te who leave the tribe participate in. Therefore, a Tia male from the sunseeker tribe who left to join modern civilization could very well become a husband. As far as who first practiced matrimony in the traditional sense, we have no clue (as of yet).

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My thoughts exactly. Monogamous behavior doesn't seem to coincide with traditional Miqo'te social structure.

Marriage really does strike me as something more of a Hyur/Elezen tradition.
I could never see a tribal Miqo'te get married unless they left their tribe; though this does bring up the question if they had some kind of joining ceremony when a Tia became a Nuhn, or if the Matriarchal females in the Keeper of the Moon clans picked out a favorite mate.

Rogaedyn are difficult to fathom, I see Hellsguard being very ritualized but Sea Wolves being always ready for an adventure; married life, children and adventure don't mix.
It'd be awesome if we got more info on the social workings of the races, like what was the Female Rogaedyn's job? We did kinda clarify that Seeker of the Sun are walking sperm-banks, but what about everyone else? D:

Mentions of Marriage in 1.X

• The two brother lalafell who work the miner's guild are out to stop the marriage of their sister, which was arranged by their mother at the groom's behest. The sister is hesitant because she doesn't love him (yet) and feels inadequate and like she hasn't even begun to live her own life yet.
• A sidequest in Limsa features a miqo'te who is using a love-potion-spiked stew to try to get her lalafell pirate crush to fall for her and propose.
• The WVR questline features a lalafell prince who falls in love with a maid at a ball, but she disappears at midnight leaving behind only a single glove (a la Cinderella). He scours the city looking for the girl who lost it, but this makes everyone in town start placing orders for the gloves.
• A few NPCs who deny wanting to be in an arranged marriage.

Honestly, it seems that a lot of Eorzean marriages are strategic alliances and arranged marriages; oftentimes either orchestrated by two parties of parents, or one man whose affections towards a woman cause her parents to force the issue.

I wonder how many of those will remain in the game though or if they'll even be referenced. ;;

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

Mentions of Marriage in 1.X
[LIST]
Honestly, it seems that a lot of Eorzean marriages are strategic alliances and arranged marriages; oftentimes either orchestrated by two parties of parents, or one man whose affections towards a woman cause her parents to force the issue.

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Sounds like what we have here back in the old days.

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

Mentions of Marriage in 1.X

• The two brother lalafell who work the miner's guild are out to stop the marriage of their sister, which was arranged by their mother at the groom's behest. The sister is hesitant because she doesn't love him (yet) and feels inadequate and like she hasn't even begun to live her own life yet.
• A sidequest in Limsa features a miqo'te who is using a love-potion-spiked stew to try to get her lalafell pirate crush to fall for her and propose.
• The WVR questline features a lalafell prince who falls in love with a maid at a ball, but she disappears at midnight leaving behind only a single glove (a la Cinderella). He scours the city looking for the girl who lost it, but this makes everyone in town start placing orders for the gloves.
• A few NPCs who deny wanting to be in an arranged marriage.

Honestly, it seems that a lot of Eorzean marriages are strategic alliances and arranged marriages; oftentimes either orchestrated by two parties of parents, or one man whose affections towards a woman cause her parents to force the issue.

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To add to the list; the lala twins also mention their wish to take F'lhaminn as a bride, to which F'lhaminn replies she can only sing for one (assuming Nielle)

I'm under the impression that marriage is treated much like it was in the middle ages/medieval times (arranged marriages for political gain or monetary gain), and probably originated from the Hyurs and/or Elezen.

The city dwelling miqo'te, or the miqo'te that have left their tribes for years are probably a lot more receptive to the idea of marriage than the ones that remain in their tribes.

Most of the npcs that discuss marriage seem to be from Ul'dah and it just as Anonymoose stated, for a large part seemed to be arranged.

Though i will have to agree that the more standard (monogamy, ceremonies, etc..) marriage seems to come from Elezen as they remind me of more royal lines. (Maybe XI brainwashing kicking in...)

The same could be said of the lalafell as they strike me as kin to the native american tribes. While along the same lines many just do not consider it to be as traditional.

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Originally Posted by aviha

Roegadyn, it's hard to say. Sea wolves would not be happy to 'settle down' unless they thought they'd accomplished all they could in their lives, so marriage would be more like saying "Welp, I'm done, time to get old," not really something to celebrate.

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I'd agree with you, although they specifically have a word for "wife" (suspiciously none for "husband" in the dictionary). That "wife" is found in the dictionary implies they use the word enough to retain it and use it in naming.

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Originally Posted by Yrusama

I'd agree with you, although they specifically have a word for "wife" (suspiciously none for "husband" in the dictionary). That "wife" is found in the dictionary implies they use the word enough to retain it and use it in naming.

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A polygamy culture?!?!
No... I suppose they'd still have a word for husband...

Hm. Seems I somehow missed this thread when I went about asking marriage questions and wound up starting a new one. Purely for the sake of cross-referencing, here are the questions I had!

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...stoms?p=980456

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Originally Posted by Verence

here are the questions I had!

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In a culture that seems to have more arranged and pressured marriages than ones that start on love, you can bet name-changes will be very important from time to time. It's all about strategically expanding and pruning the family tree and having legitimate offspring to which to pass title and wealth.

This isn't always bad. Just as many stable, arranged marriages become the foundation of later trust and love as impulsive, loving marriages eventually fall apart if you look at cross-culture social psychology.

That said, you're also going to find your free spirits who do whatever they want, such as the miqo'te brewing love potions to seduce her lalafell pirate.

The answer to most of your questions is, "Yes, you'll see this happen; no, we're not going to talk about it."

They'll refer to eachother by titles, they'll nod to eachother as NPCs, but whatever a consenting lalafell and miqo'te do behind closed tentflaps is their own Twelve-darn business. I think that's about as far as SE is going to allow comments to go, though, because discussions like this always lead to questions about how those family lines "expand" and I doubt they want to deal with the ... logistics ... or possibility of lalaqo'te.

We're probably just supposed to take this whole marriage thing at face-value and not ask too many questions. Before you know it we'll have petitions for player marriage to allow for the option of name-changes and the fan art will get a lot more ... neko-sentai-ey. That's a verb now.

Eh, I'd argue that marriage need not necessitate offspring or even intercourse. But that latter one is an issue we'll just... tastefully decline to examine too closely, hm? Clearly many marriages produce children somehow, or the very concepts of family and inheritance would be meaningless. Granted, things get more complex when you talk in terms of interracial marriage, but I'm not particularly interested in that aspect save for how the family names pass on - father's name, mother's name, new name, etc.

I don't really see any particular need to simply hand-wave it away as unknowable things that will never see light - after all, we know how Miqo'te breed. Why is it strange to want to know how other races interact in the familial sense? Clearly SE isn't overly reticent about how this stuff happens. From a societal standpoint, it really is rather relevant and interesting information. Taking marriage at "face value" means relatively little to me in a fantasy setting whose social mores are clearly rather different than our own in at least some respects.

I also... Completely fail to see how allowing name changes would encourage the neko sentai-ization (I made a new word too, hooray!) of fan works. Besides, isn't it extremely easy to avoid that stuff? Just don't go to the bloody site! I'd actually support allowing name changes as part of the wedding package if the adoption of last names is an established part of lore. Otherwise it's kind of like dangling stuff over our head and going "Ah-ah! Only for NPCs, not for you!" like the apostraphes in 1.0 Miqo'te names.

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Originally Posted by Verence

<,,,>

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All true - but also too assuming that many of the things I said were connected as a whole. I was merely trying to list lots of possible examples. Some of this, some of that. Arranged marriages, dowries, parents forcing daughters to take proposals - all of these things are indicative of a culture that treats women as marital property. Therefore, it's likely that some marriages will be strategic for reasons of lineage or material. Some other marriages will be freely chosen. Some will be cross-race, some will be cross-clan. Some of those will be arranged and some of those will be freely chosen -get what I'm saying?

When the world considered women a monetary commodity for marriage, we saw a lot of marriages like those talked about in Eorzea now. It's a possibility worth considering that the goals might be the same - and if not, what they might be otherwise.

We also see marriages as social constructs, legal contracts, and religious covenants - the latter often being based entirely around "legitimate" procreation for the preservation of legal-hassle-free property and title transference. All possibilities are on the table save for maybe I just needed the Thalassocrassy's dental plan and once you're married, it's kind of a joint thing.

The last statement was more of a lighthearted joke about how once we start talking about pairing off, it's only so long that you can hold off the "HOW WOULD THAT WORK, GUYS, AMIRITE?" ... and there will always be those who cannot wait to answer that question for you.

TL;DR - The former was a list of possibilities, not a hierarchy progression - the latter was a joke about avoiding Rule 34 for as long as humanly possible, which is a separate possibility from people continuing to test where SE will draw the lines. ("Will there be marriage? Well, will there be same-sex marriage? If NPCs change surnames, do I get to when I get married? Can we look forward to roegazen? What about a same-sex marriage involving a roegazen and a vierafell!?")

Oh, you mean like Rule 34 toothbrushes?

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ma...z11ho1_250.jpg

...Yeah, let's not go there.

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Originally Posted by Verence

Oh, you mean like Rule 34 toothbrushes?

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But if the purple toothbrush's first name already has an apostrophe, and the blue toothbrush's LAST name has an apostrophe, and they get married, and players can take eachother's surnames, but only one apostrophe is allowed, would their children start out as floss?

That said, if SE is reluctant to go too deep into things, it would more likely be to avoid unnecessary complexity based on where they draw their lines. I'm not really expecting too conservative of an attitude from the company that threatened to hang me from the Sanguine Siren's flagship from my manhood.

Also, fun fact, in the quest where the lalafell was running away from her arranged marriage, when she escapes to the dock, her mother's first worry is how her "maidenhead" is going to hold up around them pirates. The possibilities I listed are totally legitimate, I tell you!

You know, it occurs to me (a day late 'cause i THMURT) that there may have been a misunderstanding regarding my earlier posts. I'm not really interested in "traditions" on interracial marriages, since such marriages are probably by their very nature nontraditional. Such unions would, by my guess, go one way or the other culturally speaking or perhaps strike a happy medium that isn't really in the purvey of tradition, therefore not really a part of "lore" per se.

No, what I was interested in (and perhaps communicated poorly) was the traditions of each respective race and/or tribe: Lalafell traditions, Elezen traditions, Seawolf traditions, etc. That, I feel, is relevant and interesting information to how Eorzean society is built and how it functions. Families, how they're formed, and how they bring up the next generation is what interests me here - specifically in the context of names, but as stated before, any and all info would be interesting stuff to know just to expand our view of Eorzean culture and society as a whole.

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Originally Posted by Verence

No, what I was interested in ... was the traditions of each respective race and/or tribe

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Ahhh, see, this would be far more difficult for me to speculate on. Eorzea, itself being a cultural realm, seems to be midway through a melting-pot scenario. I suspect that in terms of traditional and race-specific cultural expressions, the examples will be few but more pronounced / important in the story.

I'll keep an eye out!

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Originally Posted by aviha

Well, going on nothing, my idea would be something like...

'Traditional' marriage, lifelong monogamy between one male and one female, is probably an elezen invention inspired by the divine love between Menphina and Oschon. The symbol of Oschon, a walking stick, is probably involved; maybe the groom hands his staff to the priest, as if to say,

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http://i.imgur.com/T7GLFqP.jpg
/sweat /panic
source
/whistle


here is the chart I made 3 months ago... huge picture, sorry, so ppl can see the whole thing and little detail about each box...


The box has top-down structure such as Nymeia and Althyk are brother-sister, but Althyk is the elder one...

• Family already exist before Menphina and Oschon
  1. there are room to debate family = marriage existed still...
  2. we can see Father-daughter and Mother-daughter relationship already exist before Menphina and Oschon. That means Family already an idea. Also, it's not a father or mother as main society; both side have equal respect, or people won't say "Nophia is daughter of Azeyma".
• Oschon maybe not that good of a lover...
  1. Oschon has a female "Close Companion" Halone...there is no "simple friendship" between male and female =.= unless Halone is extremely manly-looked, since goddess of war thing...
• There is no husband and wife arrows in The Twelves relationship...(out of space so SE didn't list it?)
  1. Thaliak and LLymlaen are father-Daughter
  2. Azeyma and Nophica are Mother-Daughter
  3. LLymlaen is elder sister of Nophica
  4. how about Thaliak and Azeyma...?
• if there is no cross-race marriage, The Twelves should be single race.

and the symbol is mostly cus their tool/weapon I think

we need to go into that Twelves church to get more info I think

It is worth pointing out that the concept of arranged marriage for the purpose of wealth and prestige is a very Ul'dahn thing by nature. We are likely so see far more of that around the Sultanate than anywhere else.

Meanwhile, the Theocracy of Gridania is more likely to see marriage developed around the concept of a family and settling down, since their connection to nature and tradition is exceedingly strong. So more of the religious aspect of marriage.

And of course, the free spirits of the Thalassocracy are more likely to end up in those relationships defined by love. It's the kind of place that lets you, and in fact encourages you, to run off and follow your heart and your dreams.

Rukkirii knows where it's at:
http://static2.finalfantasyxiv.com/a...Xh7VxTukdc.png
And I hope she enjoys it as well (with or without marraige)! :D

Hmmm that chart of The Twelve reminded me once more. . . .

We still have no info on how our chosen guardian will affect our characters, right? I'm a bit panicky, because I don't want to mess my char (even if later, laaaaater we are allowed to change it perhaps) in a big way by choosing it "blindly". I'd like to remain faithful to Menphina. Because love. . . . but not wanting to miss out on some perk/title/subligar which I might like better, that might be a favour from a different deity .___.

EDIT:

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Originally Posted by Catapult

Rukkirii knows where it's at:

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Stalker! o_o

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Originally Posted by Nuinn

Stalker! o_o

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I dare you to say that to her 747 followers.

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Originally Posted by Catapult

I dare you to say that to her 747 followers.

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Luckily I have exactly 747 fingers! *points* Stalkers! (ﾉ> ◇ <)ﾉ