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Premise for a theocratic matriarchy I want feedback on

Please give me a (non fictional) example of a culture in which people are ok with other people murdering their children for religious reasons.

It wasn't always other people do the sacrificing. There is the Biblical story of Abraham and Isaac. Even if you consider the Bible as fictional, the story likely has at least some basis in fact.

Child sacrifice - Wikipedia - mentions, among other theories, it's believed that in Maya culture, parents would allow their children to be sacrificed, thinking they would continue to exist in some form even after the sacrifice.
 

Russ

Istar
The bible actually deals with child sacrifice beyond that one story.

I will keep this super short because I don't want to drag this thread way off topic.

My understanding is that there is significant evidence for voluntary child sacrifice in Europe, North America, South and Central America and Africa. I don't know about Asia.

Even the Carthaginians apparently did it:

Ancient Carthaginians really did sacrifice their children | University of Oxford
A collaborative paper by academics from institutions across the globe, including Oxford University, suggests that Carthaginian parents ritually sacrificed young children as an offering to the gods.

But the point I was making to the OP and on the thread topic. Different cultures deal with things very, very differently than our modern western cultures. You really have to try to leave as much of that behind as you can and stretch your mind to create a culture based on fundamentally different premises than ours.
 
Attitudes toward children: An interesting topic, and one I don't think about much when designing a world but probably should.

Children have had it tough throughout history.

Plenty of archeological evidence, from bones for instance, suggests that children often began manual labor at a very young age. It wasn't all kindergarten, toys, and trips to Disneyland.

Evidence for child sacrifice/murder abounds, although in those cases where it happened, we may not have much trustworthy evidence that parents had much desire to offer up their children for sacrifice normally. That Wikipedia page suggests that a culture like the Mayan culture may have believed children were closer to the gods, already, or weren't really "dying" in the way we think of death, so sacrifice may have had a different meaning than we'd place on it. Plutarch mentioned that the Carthaginians offered up their own children for sacrifice; then, decades passed in which scholars sought to overturn the notion that Carthaginians sacrificed children at all; then, archeological evidence turned up that suggested the Carthaginians really did do child sacrifices.

But probably we shouldn't label attitudes toward children as if these where universal attitudes within a culture. Even within our own culture, parents still prostitute their children, sell their children for profit, murder their children, abuse their children, and abandon their children to the elements. It's just not the norm for our culture. I'd also imagine that any culture in which child sacrifice was a norm would have parents who didn't want that for their children.

And then there is The 100
.
 

Annoyingkid

Banned
The OP doesn't sound like he's writing backward primitives. In this society of magitech, men are only needed for breeding and killing and not even the latter as they could just say soldiers aren't expected to get pregnant to begin with.
 

Russ

Istar
The OP doesn't sound like he's writing backward primitives.

The assumptions built into this statement about values is exactly what you need to leave behind when you want to create a society from a Tabla Rasa and different roots than ours.
 
The OP doesn't sound like he's writing backward primitives. In this society of magitech, men are only needed for breeding and killing and not even the latter as they could just say soldiers aren't expected to get pregnant to begin with.

Twice now you've mentioned the magitech to suggest that the OP's world is somewhat analogous to our own current world and that this level of advancement would affect other attitudes–but I'm not so sure. I guess we'd need to ask Sharad9 whether this is indeed intended to be a technologically advanced society. Very little was mentioned in the OP, and alchemy was mentioned, so my impression was that the society falls a little behind ours, at least, if we are making comparisons.

In any case, in our own world the Industrial Revolution came and was well under way before strong child labor laws became a reality.
 
Are you suggesting that my statement is inaccurate or just hoping I will do some research for you?

I think you are wrong.

Maya culture, parents would allow their children to be sacrificed, thinking they would continue to exist in some form even after the sacrifice.

Is their any prof that this story didn't originated from the conqustadors or from a rival meso american civilization.
Also if one or two people did it, this doesn't mean that it was socially acceptable from the majority.

There is the Biblical story of Abraham and Isaac. Even if you consider the Bible as fictional, the story likely has at least some basis in fact.

Some people probably have sacrifaced their relatives to prove their devotion and faith, however I don't think that was realy consentual.
I think the story of Isaac and Abraham simbolise a yong man send to war against a stronger nation, surviving and returning home.


Even the Carthaginians apparently did it:

Ancient Carthaginians really did sacrifice their children | University of Oxford

I still belive this to be a roman propaganda.
 

Annoyingkid

Banned
I'm just confused as to why men's strength is valued as protective when they can make crystal powered golem mech suits. Women can far outclass men's strength with tech like that.
 

Russ

Istar
I think you are wrong.



Is their any prof that this story didn't originated from the conqustadors or from a rival meso american civilization.
Also if one or two people did it, this doesn't mean that it was socially acceptable from the majority.



Some people probably have sacrifaced their relatives to prove their devotion and faith, however I don't think that was realy consentual.
I think the story of Isaac and Abraham simbolise a yong man send to war against a stronger nation, surviving and returning home.




I still belive this to be a roman propaganda.

While you are perfectly entitled to your beliefs you should be aware that there is a significant international academic consensus of the existence of child sacrifice occurred in Europe, Africa, South America and North America. Your view runs quite counter to what virtually all of the experts in the field suggest.
 
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