If you want to do business with a dwarf...

[hal]

Marry Her.

This thread was triggered by a conversation with another Forumite with an off handed comment about Gender ratios, marriage customs and the like. The line was simple enough: Dwarves in his world are polyandrous with a gender imbalance of 1 Female Dwarf per 4 Dwarves (Making it a 3:1 ratio overall). If it is customary for marriages to contain more than one husband to one wife, but instead, results in marriages that are commonly 3 or more males per one wife - the question that rolls in my head is "what happens to the Female dwarves who don't marry?

So, I started to think in terms of group marriage in which there are multiple partners. That in turn made me ask "Is it possible for a Dwarf to be married to more than one person at a given time? In other words, can a Dwarven Male have two female wives at a time where she has give husbands?

Old Dwarven Proverb: We were created with one mind, four limbs. Five is the perfect number.

Translation: Five is the perfect marriage. A Dwarven Woman who has but three is going to be looking for a fourth. From there, I begin to see some possibilities at a social level. Each husband has a function to fulfill. The First Husband may be an arranged marriage between two families where there is some strategic benefit or alliance to be gained. That first husband does not have to prove a thing to his wife, as she ws gifted his connections and possibly a marriage gift. Subsequent husbands however, have to prove themselves worthy.

Thus, an unmarried dwarf wants to prove he is capable in some manner - an expert in crafting, or an able manager, or perhaps a luxury craftsman whose work is highly desired. Competition in proving one's skills drives the Dwarves ever onward toward excellence amongst their brothers, where a first prize means more than gold.

But that single question still rises in the air before me. In a culture where only 1 woman is born for every 3 males, chances are very high, that a premium is placed on their safety. So, let's look at numbers.

If FIVE is the perfect marriage, and few ever have perfect marriages (as yet), then how many women don't find husbands with a 3:1 ratio of males to females?

1000 Dwarves born. 750 will be male, 250 will be female. Dividing 750 by 4, we have enough males to make 187 perfect penthus marriages (five people). So, that leaves us with maybe 63 dwarven women who won't marry. If we're shy some perfect fives, we might get our marriage numbers closer to 200 marriages in 1000 Dwarven communities. That still leaves us with about 50.

Perhaps they become Religious leaders?

Imagine if you will, the concept of marriages where to get noticed by the wife, you have to prove yourself in some fashion. What do you call those single Dwarven Men? The Unwanted? The Unproven? The lazy ones?

What are the implications of marriage between the wives whose husbands belong to different clans? Marry in haste, repent in leisure would have a Dwarven saying along the lines of "Forge Ties to your husband's mother with care, once forged, never destroyed"

In the end, it made me think of how dwarven marriage rituals may change with the concept of multiple husbands. It would also perhaps create a competition not just for the wife of choice amongst the unmarried dwarves, but that her husbands might also factor in the mindset of a young (ok, relatively young!) Dwarf.

Which brings me to a final thought. Which is why I led with the idea of how to do business with a Dwarf...

Non-Dwarvens races may find that the only way they can do business with a Dwarven clan is if they marry a Dwarven woman. The marriage forges ties with the non-dwarf, and certain "blood rights" are the result of the marriage. Just as you are obligated to come to the defense of a home in which you are related by blood, human males who marry a Dwarven Woman may be required to come to the aid of her immediate blood family - which typically will consist of her Grandparents, her Parents, and at least three brothers, perhaps more, plus her husbands. if First Husbands have a secure role in the family, then perhaps even kin from HIS side of the family involving his parents and his siblings are also covered by that duty.

Be careful of whom you wish to do business - you may find yourself in a business relationship that is as intricate as marriage. Five may be the perfect DWARVEN number for each marriage - a head (the wife) the right hand (first husband) Left hand (second husband), Strong leg (third husband) and trailing leg (last husband) - but nothing says she can't have 6 or 7 husbands who are dwarven, or even 9 husbands (four of whom are dwarven, and four who are human).

Just musing aloud as it were. Now I have to start thinking about a society that prizes that level of intricate matrimonial ties and how a husband migh go about gaining recognition. For instance, a brewer of alcohol beverages that lnclude a Mushroom/Honey fermentation process that produces a flavor that Dwarven Ale is prized for. Just because we would call it Mead instead of ale doesn't mean the Dwarves have to!

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by hal

1000 Dwarves born. 750 will be male, 250 will be female. Dividing 750 by 4, we have enough males to make 187 perfect penthus marriages (five people). So, that leaves us with maybe 63 dwarven women who won't marry. If we're shy some perfect fives, we might get our marriage numbers closer to 200 marriages in 1000 Dwarven communities. That still leaves us with about 50.

You're assuming an equal proportion of males and females survive into adulthood (and continue to survive); particularly if they make it a point to protect the females, you're going to wind up with males having a higher death rate than the females - out of 1000 Dwarves, you may wind up with something more like (mostly just throwing numbers out) 600 surviving males and 240 surviving females (so 150 dead males and 10 dead females), which leaves you only enough males for 150 penthus marriages, so there would be 90 unmarried dwarven women in that scenario.

I'm also curious as to what happens when one of a woman's husbands dies. Say you have a penthus marriage, but the First Husband gets eaten by a dragon or whatever. Is the First Husband slot still considered filled (that is, she's still married to him, despite his death, and so cannot remarry)? Is it vacant and now she has suitors to choose from? Does the Second Husband functionally move up a rank (as well as the Third and Fourth) and become the new First Husband, and now she's in the market for a new Fourth Husband?

I suspect what you'd wind up with is a lot of people basically settling for less-than-perfect. Noblewomen will have their perfect penthus marriages, but many women of the lower classes will wind up making due with three or fewer husbands. It might wind up as something of a measure of one's place in society - basically, the higher a woman's societal "rank" (Status in GURPS), the more husbands she likely has - and the higher a man's societal rank, the more additional husbands his wife is likely to have.

The idea of marrying into a dwarven family as being a necessary step to do business with them is certainly an interesting one, and would be a way for lower-class women to achieve a penthus marriage - not a perfect one, given she's got some humans/elves/orcs/whatever in the mix, but at least it's a complete group. There would probably be more of a stigma associated with having more than four husbands than having fewer than four, although I could see this ironically being less stigmatized if all the "extra" husbands are non-Dwarves. It would certainly make for an interesting social dynamic.

[The Colonel]

Hell, once you allow another species you might as well allow other genders as well (perhaps only if other species as well) - so that one of a dwarf-woman's "husbands" could be a female human or a hermaphrodite elf (or whatever your elves happen to be) or a member of some species that don't reproduce sexually...

[hal]

one Brain, four limbs - implies that the woman is the brain and supreme **teasing grin**

As for what happens when a husband dies? Clearly, they mourn the loss and move on. If they are beyond their mourning, they may perhaps want him replaced, but life always moves on after a death.

I have to admit, echoes of THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS from Robert Heinlein was going through my head as I tried the idea on for size. Instead of "Humans in rubber suits" kind of approach, this idea for Dwarves in fleshing out the social ramifications of a marriage with more than one husband kind of made me wonder how they might approach it, how it would work, and maybe somehow...

"That's obscene - you let your women wear clothing!" from STAR TREK just somehow makes sense.

Men have to prove themselves to the wifes who will take them. Prestige, a more posh home with a wife who is well connected, perhaps an overwhelming concern that females of the species are more important to the culture than are men - might carry over in the Dwarven dealings with the Humans. Imagine too, being invited to marry as a business partner - cementing a PERMANENT business relationship. Sort of like being adopted into a clan as it were. As long as the wife has her Dwarven husbands to help her with Children, then the human husbands are more symbolic than otherwise might be the case.

Imagine too, if there is inter-species compatability in bedsports, being expected to consumate the marriage even if no child can ever come of it. There may well be the "Ew" factor involved, or a cosmopolitan approach of "when in Rome, avoid the slaves and do as they do." (or something like that.

So - if you offer a question, offer solutions to that question. **teasing grin**

Better yet? ADD customs to this so the guy I spoke with earlier can see this thread, and maybe see ideas he is going to STEAL. Maybe not mine, but YOURS. THAT is the sweetest part of doing a thread like this. Add, snip, modify, an perhaps help the guy flesh things out in a manner he'd otherwise not do.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by hal

So - if you offer a question, offer solutions to that question.

Fair enough. For the death question, I'd suggest that marriage is not a "'Til Death Do Us Part" situation - because not even death nullifies it. When a woman takes a First Husband, he will always be her First Husband, even if he dies. This could potentially result in a tradition such as Ghost Marriages - a dwarven woman who has a First and perhaps Second Husband but no real further prospects might arrange to marry deceased dwarves with their families, completing the penthus marriage.

The only exception to a husband always being the husband of a dwarf would be divorce. This would be rare, typically restricted to extreme cases (spousal abuse, rampant infidelity, seriously injuring or killing a family member, etc), and probably only able to be initiated by the wife (or her clan, if she is too sick, injured, or dead to file suit on her own behalf). Such divorces are often posthumous, as the wife, her other husbands, or her clan may well kill the offender themselves.

For consummation, I'd say it's expected but not required (otherwise those ghost marriages wind up with a significant squick factor). If you marry into a dwarven clan, unless you are sexually incompatible you should expect some snu-snu in your near future (and if you are sexually incompatible, well, your new wife may have some ideas to bridge that gap, so you aren't necessarily off the hook).

[whswhs]

I'm curiously reminded of some aspects of my recent fantasy campaign, Tapestry. The dwarves in it were a eusocial species like naked mole rats, but with fortress eusociality like that of certain species of shrimp, which comes from a species having enclosed spaces to be defended. In my setting a typical dwarf household was one fertile female, two to five fertile males, and a number of neuter children who did routine labor such as digging, cleaning, and sorting minerals, while the female ran the hearth and the forge, and the males guarded and traded.

In some dwarven cultures, the custom was that when the fertile dwarf woman died, or stopped having children, one of her daughters would succeed her and her fathers would negotiate for a group of husbands for her, offering payment to their parents. In others, a group of dwarven brothers would go looking for a wife, and each dwarven household would have a daughter who had been kept apart from her mother to allow her to become fertile; the husbands would then pay a bride price. Larger groups of brothers had an advantage, and so did richer households.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by hal

If FIVE is the perfect marriage, and few ever have perfect marriages (as yet), then how many women don't find husbands with a 3:1 ratio of males to females?

1000 Dwarves born. 750 will be male, 250 will be female. Dividing 750 by 4, we have enough males to make 187 perfect penthus marriages (five people). So, that leaves us with maybe 63 dwarven women who won't marry.

Why would you divide 750 by 4? That is, total number of males divided by total number of dwarves in a marriage? Divide 1000 (dwarves) by 250 (marriages), you get exactly 4 (dwarves per marriage). Or divide 750 males by 3 males/marriage, and you again get 250 marriages. There are no leftover females to be worried about under those assumptions.
(Your high school science teaching is now pumping their fist in the air while shouting "dimensional analsis! Yes!")

Which is not to say there aren't some female dwarves that don't marry by choice. However, with a skewed ratio, I expect there would be higher social pressure for them to marry and bear children -- if dwarves are all concerned about their numbers or species survival.

As Varyon notes, evolution would tend to tune the birth rate to account for differences in survival rates until mating (female death in childbirth, male death by doing other hazardous things, etc). You might well wind up with a few extra males, if dwarves are otherwise like humans in these things.

It's possible that there are three male dwarf genders, and you need one of each with the female to have offspring.

It's possible that dwarven males aren't always in estrus (perhaps averaging 1/3 the time). Or that 2 out of three males aren't ever sexual -- they're drones. Marriages of a fertile pair might acquire a couple because they're good to have around, but they're not _required_ for reproduction. These drones might have evolved to want to belong to a mating pair, as they thus contribute to survival of the species. Kin selection might make drone relatives more common than random pairings, as they're more closely related. This drone urge might drive competition between drones, with crafting skill being especially admired, or even fights (ritual or otherwise), to have a family. (Perhaps this history is why dwarves have bonus strength and constitution.) Acceptance of a drone by a mating pair is socially as much of an event as a marriage. Perhaps once accepted, a married drone is no longer subject to those competitive challenges -- which is not to say that the Unattached don't resent them or want to displace them somehow. Dwarven rockfalls might show up with the same frequency as hunting accidents among English royalty.

You can work that notion the other way -- most females don't reproduce, but the ones that do have huge litters of offspring. Dwarven mines thus start to look like beehives, with one queen and a whole bunch of neuter females dwarves. Possibly not all males are fertile, either.

Either way, you wind up with a lot of dwarves that have a lot of excess energy to spend mining instead of chasing mates. Perhaps that contributes to making dwarves so productive.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

Hell, once you allow another species you might as well allow other genders as well (perhaps only if other species as well) - so that one of a dwarf-woman's "husbands" could be a female human or a hermaphrodite elf (or whatever your elves happen to be) or a member of some species that don't reproduce sexually...

Which is another issue that I've found a lot of weird sex schemes don't adequately address that really needs to be. Where do the children come from to sustain the population.

If you have a 3:1 male to female sex ratio, on average each female is going to need to have 4 children survive to reproduce or your population is doomed. That's either a lot of pregnancies relative to humans, or a much lower infant mortality rate. And if you opt for the second, you may need to figure out how it happened [before] your race got civilized - though that's not as big an issue in fantasy where the races can be created at high TL by the gods and not have to deal with a stone age. Part of the assumed reason for gender role differences in humans is childbirth and childcare - that's only going to be a bigger issue for your dwarves and may cut against the kind of enlightened matriarchy vibe a lot of people expect out of that kind of sex ratio.

[Apollonian]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Which is another issue that I've found a lot of weird sex schemes don't adequately address that really needs to be. Where do the children come from to sustain the population.

If you have a 3:1 male to female sex ratio, on average each female is going to need to have 4 children survive to reproduce or your population is doomed. That's either a lot of pregnancies relative to humans, or a much lower infant mortality rate. And if you opt for the second, you may need to figure out how it happened [before] your race got civilized - though that's not as big an issue in fantasy where the races can be created at high TL by the gods and not have to deal with a stone age. Part of the assumed reason for gender role differences in humans is childbirth and childcare - that's only going to be a bigger issue for your dwarves and may cut against the kind of enlightened matriarchy vibe a lot of people expect out of that kind of sex ratio.

Or, potentially, a strong tendency toward multiple births. Maybe dwarves usually come in six packs. (And if they're still strongly K selection strategy, can give you a biological reason for polyandry: multiple male partners help ensure that more of the litter survives and thrives.)

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Apollonian

Or, potentially, a strong tendency toward multiple births. Maybe dwarves usually come in six packs. (And if they're still strongly K selection strategy, can give you a biological reason for polyandry: multiple male partners help ensure that more of the litter survives and thrives.)

I like that one! Also jives with dwarves from the hobbit where they all have names that are variations on a theme: Ori, Dori, and Nori