Chapter 90: Ties Of Blood And Seed

''One particularly thorny problem that faced the Imperial Assembly Of Law was the question of legal definitions of marriage. At the time of the Assembly, there were no less than twelve legally and culturally distinct practiced forms of marriage within the bounds of the Empire, and the general legal chaos this caused was part of the impetus for the Assembly in the first place. The jurists thus assembled faced a significant problem in trying to reconcile the various forms. Consider the difference between Latin Catholic marriage, which did not allow for divorce, and every other form, which did allow for divorce (and several forms were, in fact, explicitly temporary unless renewed).''

''Divorce was just one area of consideration, albeit a contentious one. The necessity of witnesses (needed in Christian forms, not needed in Judaic forms), multiple spouses (allowed in Norse, Islamic, and Gaelic forms, recently outlawed in some Judaic forms, and strictly forbidden by Christian forms), the necessity of clergy or ceremony, the obligations of the spouses to each other, the allowance of same-gender marriages, and, most contentious of them all, mixed marriages between members of different groups… all of these and more were potential problems that needed to be overcome.''

''The solution which was eventually adopted was, in the general vein of the Assembly's solutions, a broad secular code that stepped back from the religious arena and concerned itself strictly with recognition by the state. Under that code, any consenting group of adults (barring certain degrees of consanguinity, itself a topic of debate) could choose to register as "married" in the eyes of the state, so long as the group—ranging from the typical two to a record nine—had an agreement arranged beforehand on the particulars of their nuptials in regards to divorce, inheritance, descent, and marital obligations (there were a number of rules instituted there as well, to avoid cases of marital slavery and other abuses).''

''A number of standardized formulations were likewise hammered out to suit the needs of particular forms of marriage, but these were not required by the law, and it was completely within the realm of acceptability to submit more esoteric arrangements (and often needed in the cases of the larger marriages). In effect, it was the official legal position of the Empire that the relationships between the marriage participants and their religious and social home groups were not a concern by the Imperial state, at least not beyond how those relationships informed their marriage contract.''

''While this was strongly opposed by social conservatives, the fact was that bickering between the conservative groups sabotaged their efforts to stop it. No one group of them could get the rest to agree on which implementation of marriage they desired to be backed by law, even as all of them agreed that they did not approve of the more broadly defined version. This strife among those who wished to have marriage be more narrowly defined according to their own desires allowed for the passing and implementation of the law in the Grand Thing. And while this did not bring an end to strife regarding marriage within the Empire, it at least allowed for a legal unity in terms of recognition of what a marriage was and wasn't.''

—Origins Of The Grand Thing, Edinburgh Press, 1631

Foreshadowing
Put spoilers here

Epigraph Tie-In

 * The epigraph mentions the legal definition of marriage in the North Sea Empire and the different forms they can take. The chapter shows the following:
 * Gytha becoming a concubine to Fishswill.
 * Camilla and Merida marrying.

Links to the Chapter
ArchiveOfOurOwn link