Daughters of Temperance
"Oh! that each fair girl in our abstinence bandWhat do you do when corruption plagues your society, when it is advertised in your streets and flaunted in your home? You fight back. The Daughters of Temperance wage war on all alcohol but particularly The Demon Drink.
Would say: 'I'll ne'er give my heart or my hand
Unto one who I ever had reason to think
Would taste one small drop of the vile, cursed drink';
And say, when you are wooed, 'Together we may dine,
But the lips that touch liquor shall never touch mine.'"- Marching song of temperance campaigners, lyrics by Sam Booth
Structure
The Daughters are a largely non-hierarchical organization. The movement has chapters in cities throughout Flimflam; each largely plans events and organizes independently of each other. That said, there are typically 3 senior-level positions in each chapter: President, Secretary, and Treasurer. Some chapters elect; others allow the more energetic members to essentially self-select into these key roles.
Public Agenda
Simple: Eliminate The Demon Drink. The Daughters seek to stop its manufacture, distribution, and consumption.
As a decentralized organization, however, chapters (and individual members) have different reasons for their mission. In a stroke of organizational genius, Ada Gürsoy managed to create a motto for the Daughters overall that incorporated the three leading rationales for temperance:
- Safety: Women and children are at an increased risk of domestic violence when alcohol is consumed. This is particularly true for Seitanic spirits, which can increase an individual's strength much more than they realize. Some also see the enhanced charm effects of Beelzebite and Asmodean spirits as fundamentally altering people's personalities such that their partners can't make good choices.
- Solidarity: Some Daughters feel deeply for the Demonic Spirits who are harshly used (to put it mildly) in The Demon Drink's creation. They argue it is our duty as humans--potential consumers of the drink--to take a stand with the oppressed. These are the Daughters most likely to coordinate with the Burners, though most Daughters decry the kind of violence that Burners see as necessary to protect their people.
- Sobriety: This might seem obvious or redundant (indeed, it is a testament to Gürsoy's savviness that she included it as the final term) but sobriety is a key virtue for believers in The Father. As the name suggests, the Daughters draw heavily from the Priesthood of the Father's faithful and religious motivations are strong for some chapters, particularly in the Albion Empire.
Political Influence & Intrigue
The Daughters of Temperance are a unique sect among the worshippers of The Father in that they are led by women. The Priesthood of the Father is all male; women are to keep the home and hearth. The Daughters, however, have taken that limitation and turned it into their reason for engaging in public activism--The Demon Drink, they argue, corrupts and disrupts the home.
Safety. Solidarity. Sobriety.
by ButNoCigar remix of Waite-Smith original card
Putative alliance
The Priesthood of the Father is hesitant to fully endorse the Daughters, as they are a woman-run organization and the Priesthood is heavily patriarchal. The Daughters, for their part, see no reason why the two shouldn't work together perfectly--though newer, younger members are beginning to doubt this.
Covert cooperation
The quiet alliance between the Daughters and the Burners is of a particularly curious nature. Where the Daughters work through public marches, speakers, and pressure on legislators, the Burners wholeheartedly endorse violence. And yet, because their goals are one and the same, the organizations have begun to cooperate in unspoken (at least in public) ways. The liquor industry, of course, tries to use this against temperance efforts, to some success.
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