Noble Marriages

Noble marriages were initially conceived as political alliances to improve a noble family’s reputation and increase their influence. Since most cultures at the time favoured family structures composed of an elaborated network of lovers, the stipulation that a marriage had to be between two people only was a considerable (and for some an incomprehensible) change.
The traditions around noble marriages had to change over time to keep up with changes in society and with the change in nobility's own standing within society. For most, those traditions have now gone out of favour, but some traditionalists still insist on doing everything "the way it was meant to be".
The most controversial part of the current tradition involve a "Virility Test" in which nobles wanting to marry have to have children with someone else before been granted a licence to do so. In recent years, the Rottborne family has become subject of many newspapers headlines after their son Briennus got his classmate pregnant as his Virility Test, but without consulting said classmate about it. The classmate decided to deprive Briennus from any parenting right, meaning his Virility Test was declared invalid and his marriage, delayed.

History

The original marriage process started with a noble family identifying a non-noble family of exceptional skill or moral fibre and calling them for negotiations on a contract. The non-noble family was to put forward their most capable child of a suitable age (anywhere between 18 and 28 was generally acceptable) and pledge allegiance to the noble family. In exchange for that, the noble family would put forward their own most capable child of suitable and give their new in-laws a noble title and special privileges. The specific title and the privileges they entailed would be discussed at length and depend on the skill, importance, and believed influence of the non-noble family.
Once all parties were happy with the contract, the two chosen children would marry in a formal ceremony that was generally nothing more than signing an endless amount of forms. The married couple would not have necessarily met before the marriage. Once the ceremony was completed, the non-noble family became part of the nobility.
The new couple would be eventually expected to produce a child in order to cement the alliance and make it symbolically permanent. However, the long-enduring traditions of free, polyamorous loving mean that no part of the contract stipulated that the couple had to be exclusive. Lovers abounded in court, as long as one child could be certified as belonging to the married couple.
Overtime, however, the pressure to have this one certifiable child grew stronger than the dominant free-loving culture. The nobility wanted to be special, and forbidding extra-conjugal love seemed like the kind of special thing they could reliably do without being copied (mostly because no one else was willing to give up their freedom to love multiple people at once or their lives in complex family units). There was plenty of resistance at first, to the point that non-noble families refused to marry nobles despite all the potential privileges. Whether by sheer coincidence or not, this was the point when the number of noble families went into steady decline.
The punishment for getting caught in extra-marital affairs differed depending on whether one was originally from noble birth or not. Those of noble birth caught with lovers were publicly shamed, humiliated, and the children already born to them lost their noble status. Those who had only married into nobility and got caught in an affair would not only be publicly shamed and humiliated, but so would their entire family. They would be stripped of their noble titles and forbidden to own property or manage businesses (which effectively meant the family would be forced into extreme poverty. They would only be able to work for other people, and because of their public humiliation they would either not be hired at all or only find employment in the most deplorable conditions).
With such harsh penalties for non-noble families, it was no surprise that soon nobody wanted to risk becoming part of the nobility. The sudden decline in numbers, desirability (and therefore influence) meant nobles had to reform their marriage system once again, or risk becoming a rare breed (all puns intended). However, it was not until the 1700s and the revolutions that took most power away from nobility that they managed to create a stable and less controversial marriage system.

Execution

The emphasis of the new system remained in having children to pass on the family name. However, instead of forbidding a couple from having lovers in order to guarantee certifiable children, the new system aimed at making sure the couple would be able to reproduce.
This meant that, in order to marry, the couple would need to pass a Virility Test, meaning that they had to have a child before marriage. The perceived advantages of new rule were twofold: firstly, it allowed non-noble families to gain some noble prestige without the lifelong marriage committment, as long as they were the other parent of a Virility Child. Secondly, it allowed nobles to keep marrying among themselves (thus keeping their air of exclusivity).
When the Virility Test was implemented, the process of having a Noble Marriage became as follows:
1) The families arrange a marriage between their children while they are still relatively young.
2) When the children become of reproductive age (usually taken to mean 18-20 years old) they find a suitable partner to have a child with. This partner cannot be their future spouse and can be of any social class (though those are usually non-nobles). The two families involved make an agreement in which the child resulting from the Virility Test as well as their other parent will receive all noble privileges, but the child will not inherit any of the noble parent’s property or money unless the parent decides otherwise in the future.
3) Once both nobles have their own children, they are considered to have passed the Virility Test and are given a licence to marry.
4) The marriage ceremony constitutes of a formal signing of documents detailing the distribution of wealth and influence over the families, and a usually public party where the couple, their existing children, and the other parents of said children are given special attention. Those parties are usually lavish and used to showcase the wealth of the families involved, as well as to cement the relationship in the public eye.
5) The marriage becomes valid for a lifetime once the new couple has their first child. They are not allowed to divorce from that point on, as this could generate serious disagreement between the families and damage their relationship.

Primary Related Location

Tolona Peninsula