Women in Sharitarne Civilization

Women in Sharitarne Civilization

In one of his didactic videos in Youtube a highly influential professor and fiction writer of Fantasy tells a tale about an student and fan who insisted in show him his long and complex fictional world. Was something he had been doing for most his live, a theocratic inter-stelar empire. This (possibly hypothetical) man claimed he had perfect authorial knowledge of his creature; every aspect of his world was explained in a consistent way up to the last blade of grass.
To what his involuntary mentor replied with the following question: “how the women live in this inter-stelar theocratic empire?”.
The short tale I just told you may be partially fictional or entirely. However it would be a pretty bad tale if the mentioned neonate had a answer to his mentor. He in fact had not. Never thought about.
This story/history made me smile in my vanity. Because thanks to my involuntary mentor (I should say paradigm maybe, or inspiration, since I have no intention of put myself in the risky situation the protagonist of Youtube tale endured) the answer to that question was one of the first things I got when stablishing the core elements of Sharitarn. It is right in Altair’s introduction to his adventures, and shows up frequently after that.
Sharitarn grew around the answer, and I claim to be inspired by John Norman’s books of Gor mainly because of that. I do stolen the other two pillars of Gor, one explicitly (the caste system) and other more discreetly (the home stones) but gorean most noticed characteristic is beyond any doubt the dynamic between men and women on planet Gor.
Back to the World Cursed by the Vortex, where I can speak with authorial knowledge ( not as perfect as I would like yet) lets present the simplest version of that answer explicitly here, before start exploring its nuances. Women on Sharitarn are born to be slaves, natural slaves, many of them are free citizens but that is considered a artificial necessity of civilization, a necessary evil so to speak, not ideal.
Sharitarnes believe that no civilization is possible among humans unless it has free women. They also believe that no human civilization is healthy if it don’t has slave women. Must exist a balance between the number of free women and the number of slave women, the balance changes according to Geographic elements and History but limits must exist even if is not possible to present an multiversal equation.
So, “how the women live in this inter-stelar theocratic empire?” asked the prestigious scholar. How do women live on Sharitarn?
If those are slaves, who are called by a word translated by Altair as “slave-girls” whatever their age is, answer could not be simpler. Their lives are what their masters decide. No one goes between a man and his slave-girl, not even the most authoritarian tyrant. Slaves have no right and no protection against their masters, and slave-girls find no sympathy if they complain about that.
As for free women, answer is complex.
I am considering only human females here, there is more talking species on Sharitarn than a local Scholar Caste could name and for humans being the dominant specie many incorporate human culture as well as they can, but male dominance does not make sense in all cases. For those hypothetical Goreans who dislike me for that I remember the Priest Kings are not exactly patriarchal. Intelligent insect races are matriarchal on Sharitarn as often as mammals are androcratic, the obujus hyena like people are mammals and are matriarchal, the citizens of Dradinu arrived from planet Lao are humans and are true hermaphrodites so gender dominance is a question that does not apply to them for obvious reason.
We are talking here only about humans, the sexual kind of humans, and mainly about those integrated in native culture.
Let me add another specification. That text will not include the barbarian tribes, the lawless people, or the feudal states. Those are all androcratic, but the sense of that male dominance will differ so much from one people to the next that became impossible to cover all possibilities here. As mentioned in the title we are looking at civilized Sharitarn, that means State Cities, and villages.
State Cities do have their own cultures, and all institutions are implemented according to the local taste. Cities also chance in time, if we look Sharitarn of 300 thousand years ago, during the Merchant Age, we will find a category of highly educated women, mostly daughters of Scholars, who abandoned the caste system and gained influence as “bed companions” and luxurious prostitutes, who accumulated the functions of diplomats and spies. Today that kind of character is all but entirely gone, and where it still exists role was taken by Warrior Caste women, or members of the rare and usually secret Thief Caste. Today no civilized person is outside the Caste System (slaves have no caste, but by devinition they are not people). The answer to that question must start here. The life of a woman on Sharitarn depends of two factors: her Caste and her city. (same factors determine the lives of men, by the way)
High Castes contrast in many aspects with Low Castes. The first group has the obligation and right to decide political matters, they are in a way or another the government. Only exceptionally Low Castes Assemblies are permanent organs, or have any true power. All High Castes are supposed to know how to right and read, men an women are under the implicit obligation to have opinions in at least some of the pressing issues faced by their nations, and they are supposed to present those opinions publicly according to the basic laws of reason during social occasions.
“Being a woman is not an excuse to be an idiot” they say. Mostly about High Caste women how keep silence when asked about matters considered relevant to their respective castes. If the expression is used to refer a Low Caste woman matter in question tends to be personal.
One thing that leads many low caste men to buy former High Caste women and keep them tied to the foot of their beds is the opportunity to get qualified information about politics and eristic training. Not to say that they do not use those slaves for sexual pleasure as well, they do use them as common slave-girls. What they evidently are.
High Caste women seldom share their opinions with low castes. Despite their despise for slave-girl they do have more in common to slave-girls who are former High Caste. Not in concrete conditions, but in cultural background.
Most Low Castes never learn how to read. Those who do learn it as adults, after pass the test to join their castes. Since the test is not mandatory for women, we find literate Low Caste women with even less frequency than we find literate men. Only those who need read and write to make their jobs are forced to learn it, and most who don’t need that bother to endure the learning process.
There is no cultural pressure pulling How Castes in general to scholar teachings. Except in nations here the Scholar Caste got more power than usual. When chance is given Blue Castes gladly teach any student they can catch.
Not to say that Low Castes are forbidden to read. Is just that most nations keep no public education system. Castes educate their own, and they usually choose not to press their members to do what is not essential for their natural role in society. Merchants must learn to read, so they do. Fisherman Castes can live well without books. High Caste women are forced to learn High Caste culture by their Castes and families, because they must do their political job as High Caste citizens, liking or not.
The exact number of High Castes change from city to city, and do the composition of each Caste. Alchemists are a High Caste on Sharitarn while on Lutianen they aren’t even a Low Caste, they stay disperse through castes instead. Merchants are usually a Low Caste, but on Mevrengau they not only are High Caste but also share the top position with Mage Caste. Broadly speaking, High Caste women enjoy power and influence, while Low Caste women enjoy more freedom of movement, and have less reason to slavery.
In any raid High Caste women are preferential targets. In day-to-day life they are subjected to a large number of social rules and expectations.
In most places to be seemed in public violating the local dressing codes will end with the High Caste women in chains being carried to a metal worker for branding. In some cities High Caste women must cover their faces and hair, in almost all civilized parts she must cover her belly button. Low Caste women will use veils in social circumstances, such as Free Companionship Ceremonies and public festivals, but the lower their status is less likely will be to find their faces covered in normal days.
A peasant girl danced naked on a table of her peasant settlement pub, ad drunk and she could be. She left her clothes on the floor and walked back to her family farm nearby, was a hot night of Winter. She lost her way and ended in the barn of a neighbor family. She woke in a bed, with a headache, but as free as she was before start drinking. That relate would be absurd if was not for the fact that she is a Peasant Caste girl in her peasant community.
This girl will hear jokes for the rest of her live, but she would have to make the improper behaviour habit before some local boy choose to use it as argument to lock her in his collar.
Being the lower among the Low Caste the peasants are also the most tolerant one with women who violate social conventions. They protect their own women, and tolerate a lot from them. On the other hand, the life of slave-girls owned by a peasant is proverbially harsh.
You would still advise your daughter or free companion to be careful of course. Is not impossible for a young peasant to rape his childhood fellow, or an friend of his mother, and in circumstances as those described no one would blame him for do that. He is just not likely to take her as slave. Besides there is outlaws visiting the peasant fields in the night, possibly to steal domestic animals, there is the eventual City Guard Warriors patrolling the region. There is also wild predators nearby and they do not take slaves but may still be dangerous in their own way.
Peasant Women have no distinction between private and professional life, nor have peasant men. Work is shared frequently, people cover each-others backs all the time without think about it. Men and women do different things most days, but when the job requires all hands available, they get it done together.
Women from some other castes usually occupy the roles of mothers and house keepers, little else. In some castes have domestic activities as first option for women, and allow them to make the same tests men do if they want to work their caste vocation.

Warrior Caste is typical example of first group, usually. In some places the daughters of Warriors who died fighting for their cities are allowed to choose between a pension or a more active role in their caste. They must pass in several test, but not the same Warrior Caste men are subjected to, and their role will be in intelligence and spying and never as soldiers in the battlefield. Still, they will be trained for combat and are supposed to assume high risks behind enemy lines when required by their superiors. Goes without saying that a Warrior Caste woman with high rank is a precious prize to any Warrior caste from a neighbor nation.

Mage Caste women usually do not make the test to know if they have magic potential, any more than other women do. Only men are tested, and cities with a Mage University do test as many as they can regardless the caste. You could assume that women are forbidden to learn magic, but that is almost never the case. Is not proper, not womanlike, to study magic. Only rich families can afford to send a daughter to a Magical University, and only an eccentric girl would want to be tested for magic potential in the first place. Considering the girl was tested, has the potential, and has the resources to pay the costs for her education, the doors of magic are open to her. Men do have one advantage, since the city usually pays the costs for their education. Still, female alchemist, civilized sigraxes and mages do exist and there is no secret or taboo about this.
Scholars are the paradigmatic example of a caste that makes no essential distinction between men and women. Except of course for the basic fact that women can choose to be only mothers and house carers and men have no choice in the matter. Women gain entrance in Blue Caste doing the same tests men do, they are judged by the same standards. However women can also gain entrance in the caste by being born in it, or by celebrating three consecutive contracts of free companionship with the same Scholar Caste men.
Merchant Caste follows the same logic of Peasant Caste, in the sense that no real option exists between work in house or in business. Everything is personal, and all personal matters are part of a Merchant economic live, they cannot separate this things any more than they can separate their own bones from the flesh or their flesh from the blood running in it. Therefore “take care of home and nothing more” to a Merchant Women includes take care of buy and sell, and the books of accountancy, you point me a Merchant Women who doesn’t do that and I show you a lazy, shameful, woman.
What the Merchant women only do in the most desperate cases is travel in caravans. As much as possible the women in this caste work home and behind the scenes, also behind a well-paid army of Warrior Caste men. Is safer that way.
Noble Caste are born Noble Caste, as men are, that is the particularity of nobles. They are the only caste without a test for entrance. Even Merchants and Peasants must pass a ritualistic test to became adult members of their castes, that test is always mandatory for men. Noblemen do no test, if they survive long enough they became adults. One could say that not be poisoned or die from accident in childhood is this caste test, and that it has a rate of fail not inferior to any other. Be a noble is dangerous, mostly because of family complications.
Noblemen loose their Caste status permanently only if they enter another caste, and when they do that is Mage Caste. A noble boy who shows magic potential is supposed to try the First Test and if he passes he must enter Mage Caste. When a noble girl do make the test and finds out she has the potential she must try the First Test as well, and she looses the Noble Caste Status like a boy would if she passes the test. Costs are not a concern for noble families, even the lowest noble can buy magic education to his daughter. Whit favours if not with money.
When captured and slaved both boy and girl loose their caste status, but men can get it back by escaping slavery while women cannot.
Of all High Caste women, the nobles are the ones who speak less in public. They are not supposed to have the last word on any subject if the person disagree is an older man of their family or their free companion. They only became head of family when all adult men in the lineage are dead, and they have no close uncle. Nobles observe those rules as often as they observe the habit of breath. Those who understand little about how noble houses work on Sharitarn often get the impression that Noble Women are pretty puppets, little more than glorified slave-girls.
That is what you would think after enjoy a reception in the Royal Castle of most cities where a King exists.
Even if someone tells you that noble women are the ones in charge of keep track of blood lineages and provide the necessary information for their free companions decide their children unions, you may not think much of it. Because those are contracts of free companionship, so they must be “free”, must they not? Besides, the head of family as always the last word. Finally, how cares?
Well, nobles do care because blood relations is the body and soul of their way of live. The term “free companionship” is never used in more loose sense than when it is used by a Noble Caste. Finally, remember that thing about the habit of breath? Social convention is a powerful thing in Noble Caste mind, and to choose a companion for your daughter who is not suitable in the eyes of her mother goes against old and well stablished traditions. Men in this caste are supposed to care little about their children’s free companionships. Except for the kings, who are a category apart in almost every aspect.
Since we mentioned free companionship, it is an institution found is almost all civilized parts of Sharitarn. You could even call it universal among the civilized nations of this Age. That if you choose to ignore the differences between castes and cities and focus only in the common aspects.
All free companionship contracts last one lunar year when the couple celebrates them for the first time. There is no braking it before that time, and the new contract lasts the same period. After the third contract is possible to make a permanent union in some cases, but not before that. Unlike what happens on Earth Sharitarnes do keep their contracts or die trying, except for the most shameful dishonoured individuals, and those where the other part broke the contract first.
Between Noble Castes unions usually last for life, if and only if they produce children. After the first year, even with children, there is no scandal in not renew the contract. Past that time the ceremony became just a formality. Only a very serious reason will separate a noble couple.
Similar behaviour is found in the opposite end of caste system. Peasant Castes join for life after the first year of free companionship. Like the nobles they have the habit of renew the votes every year in public ceremony, for the rest of their lives. This is seemed as mere formality.
In most other castes is more usual for a couple stay together for life than separate, if they pass the first year. More so if they pass the third. However, separations are not a scandal unless they happen outside the time between two contracts. Done in the proper time no one will ask about your reasons to brake a contract, in most castes it is. Free women can end the relationship as easily as men can, if they may keep the former companion’s caste or must go back to their former one depends on the circumstance.

Inheritance and who gets to stay with the children are matters that variate too much to be covered here. Just for instance, Peasant Caste children stay in their community. Nothing else matters. The mother may leave, the father may leave, both can leave together or each one to one side. Children stay until adulthood.