Marriage and Property

Royal marriages are a complex business. Originally, while inheritance of property followed the male line, the marriage partners took the family name of the pre-eminent royal house in the match. In the beginning this was not too difficult, as a fairly clear pecking-order of royal houses could be agreed.

However, as Aerdy grew in size, and especially as some houses came to eminence not through landholdings (the traditional indicator of eminence) but through trade or learning and magical skills, very complex negotiations had to be engineered. Sometimes, two houses would agree on a trade-off, whereby two marriages would take place at the same time, with each pair taking the name of the other house to ensure equity.

Dowries for brides became the subject of negotiations which could last for months. In one legendary case, the negotiations dragged on 27 years, until the bride-to-be fell out of a carriage and was stomped into an early grave by the following cavalry detachment.

Another problem must be added to this. Inheritance is not a simple business. A ruling noble (prince) leaves his landholdings to one heir (son), but his wealth other than landholdings is distributed equally to all his male heirs, and all of them may also call themselves "prince."

This leads to a bewildering hierarchy among princes. At the top are the big landholders. Next are those who have inherited a fair sum of wealth, usually in the form of lesser landholdings, since the eldest son may make a deal with his brothers, giving them land in return for the money he needs to run his estates. Finally, there are those who inherited almost no money from wastrel or incom petent fathers. A subtle and complex social etiquette, almost impossible for outsiders to understand, regulates the behavior of these different shades of "princes" toward each other.

Some princes are very powerful men, owning hundreds of thousands of square miles of land. Some princes have but a few coins in their pocket and hardly know where the next meal is coming from.

All this makes for extraordinary politics. A prince might cash in his house affiliation for a decent dowry one year, and the next year could decide to switch back if this seems like a smart thing to do (e.g., to avoid an attack on his lands by a house which is a rival to the one he has married into).

Increasingly, princes only use their first names, "Prince Carrdren," instead of the old form of their titles, "Prince Cardren of Torquann." Some use their place of residence in their title, since this is a nod in the direction of their house affiliation without being blatant or definitive about it. For example, "Prince Carrdren of Montrey" implies that the man is of the Torquann House, since they dominate landholdings around Montrey. But their ownership isn't exclusive, so this leaves room for doubt. Shifting affiliations, and disguise of one's own real loyal ties, and a willingness to ditch them when needs be, have become a hallmark of the past two generations of Aerdi princes. This helps explain the wretched mess the country has got itself into.