Quote Originally Posted by Naria View Post
I'm wondering about the overall organisation for Keepers. It says that they tend to live in small groups of only a few families. If families stayed together over several generations that would lead to inbreeding very quickly. Do males or females then traditionally leave their family group to to seek a partner or raise a family? Or maybe families form sort term partnerships lasting a few seasons/years for mutual benefit then breakup again?

If Keepers tend to be more isolated then how did so many of them end up migrating to Eorzea in the 1st place? Is there a ranking structure among the families or an over-all "Matriarch" that was able to organize so many families of Keepers to move together, or was there some sort of social incentive in Eorzea at the time that made it attractive enough that so many Keepers pulled up stakes despite the lack of organization? From my understanding the Keepers mostly settled in the Black Shroud--an area that is very inhospitable to live in (the forest tends to eat people when mad) :-( Is there ever any sort of wide-scale Keeper gathering? Maybe every year or every few years to look for new "partner families", mates, trade, apprenticeships etc?

In reference to the discussion about Keeper marriage perhaps males practice a form of serial monogamy, where they have a short term "marriage" to one female for a set time period and then move on to another partner after so many years? This would work with the matriarchal Keeper society since a child would then raised by their mother (and aunts?) with their father a distant memory (or rarely seen figure is gatherings do exist). Likewise if a women could have children by multiple fathers, it would make sense for Keeper culture to emphasize the mother and her family as a unifying element.

Biology aside: I wonder if single births are the norm for Miq'ote in general or do they have something like litters with twins and triplets being more common? That might help explain the gender disparity, since if males are so rare a women would probably be encouraged to continue having kids until she had at least one son for the survival of the species. Somehow I don't see Miq'ote women as spending all of their time pregnant.
I'd assume the Miqo'te were one tribe prior to their migration to Eorzea in the Fifth Umbral Era. Once the ice thawed up and the land returned to 'normal' they could have then split into the different tribes and settling in the different parts. Seekers in the Sagoli Desert and the Keepers in the Twelveswood.