Soreatha - the Lashunta Bridetide

Soreatha - bridetide, which in some ways is a Lashunta wedding without a marriage. Its function is not to create a personal, familial union, but to mark a female’s coming of age, to invest her as a full member of Lashunta society, which is a very different thing. It is also the hallmark of female dominance within Lashunta society, despite the fact that, in a low-tech, pre-industrial society that strongly values physical labor and large families, Lashunta females are physically weaker than their Korasha counterparts
Lashunta females (or Damaya, though this term isn’t 100% accurate - spoiler alert!) are torn in their lifetimes between two traditional, conflicting priorities. As maidens, they serve their city’s militias as warriors (typically as Shotalashu riders), squires, and grooms. As wives (= adult female. Doesn’t Imply Marriage!), they are expected to be the landholders, community leaders, and mothers that hold Lashunta society together. The bridetide marks this transition from one life-stage to another.
Traditionally, Damaya practice celibacy (at least in terms of heterosexual intercourse) until completion of militia service. As part of the ritual, she chooses her ‘Daviras’ - First Man, with whose participation she ritually becomes a fully invested, fertile member of society. In practice, while many Damaya might not wait for their formal bridetide (the end of militia-service often takes on a bacchanalian aspect, especially in mixed companies), her family will still hold a quick ceremony on her return. In conjunction, the newly consummated wife receives either a land grant for agricultural or pastoral livelihood or a share within a trade-guild, which she then will use to support her children and establish her own household. The Lashunta term for housewife - ‘Riasse’ holds vastly different connotations than in our patriarchally biased English. It connotes mistress of the house, and the authority over everything under her roof, children, lovers, and pets, and on her land.
Lashunta matriarchy flies in the apparent face of the physical differences between the graceful but slight Damaya and the impressive but brutish Korasha if one subscribes to the ‘Might Makes Right’ theory of social evolution, and especially since, despite their looks, Korasha are every bit as mentally astute as their Damaya sisters/mothers/lovers. As an economic factor, I’ve given strong thought to making females the landholders. Newly brided wives receive a land allotment, which may vary in size depending on location and level of development, whereas males are expected to take work under a wife. While males have freedom to move around, they live under strong pressure to continue support for any children they have, be it with continued service, tribute, or other support.
On an even more basic, psychological level, however, I’ve contemplated a reason rooted in Lashunta psychic talents: Lashunta babies and children psychically bond with their mothers, even before birth, and thus hold them as their emotional authority, which can continue after childhood, and even displace from their mothers to other females who enter their lives. Culture has developed to reinforce this bias, which is highlighted in society’s upper levels being dominated exclusively by matrons, with only the occasional priest, tradehouse-master, or military captain holding rank among the elite, and historically, in the Lashunta’s legends of queens gathering Korasha harems to carry out their will. The cultural message is the same: males hold their fortune under a female’s favor, and can only rise with her goodwill.
This is not a perfect society. I would not even call it ideal or fair, for Lashunta males have far fewer options to succeed. Yet maybe because it reflects back our own society’s ills in new perspective, it makes it worth our interest and consideration.