first girls

In the women's culture, power is in procreation. To be recognized as a woman, a girl must prove her ability to produce future generations by giving birth to a female baby. That baby is called a "first girl", and by the accident of her birth she is set for life.

Fortunate favorites

Women believe that first girls are a gift from the moon. On average, they are taller, heavier, and healthier, taken as evidence of the moon's favor--but actually the natural result of first girls getting the best of everything. If a woman has more than one child, her first girl is the first fed. Within the cohort of girls, first girls gravitate toward each other as a clique. As women they are more likely to take the lead in group efforts, and they get larger shares of the results. Woman Woman herself is always a first girl, if not a first girl of a first girl.

But fortune can fade...

A first girl's social standing depends on eventually becoming a woman herself. In the back of every girl's mind is the worry that she will never produce a baby girl from full-belly. For a first girl, that idea is a terror. The longer she goes without a baby, the more likely the women may suspect that she is cursed. If she lives long enough to reach menopause, she may find herself unwelcome in any woman's home for fear her curse will spread to their own girls.

Notable Members

• Moon Wish

Related Ethnicities

• The Women

View from the future:

12,000 years, The Ocean
First girl favoritism died out in the migration downriver. While it can never be eliminated entirely, it is no longer codified in the daughter cultures:

• The Vastlanders' most revered historical figure is Source of Life, celebrated annually during the Journey Festival and described in the Songs of Journey as a third-born girl.
• Tideriders, the only ocean culture still under a hereditary matriarchy, does not choose heirs by birth order.