Social structures

About the only thing I can think of in my stories is the fact that my merfolk in one WIP regularly engage in polygamy/polyamory and same-sex relationships. The MC of said WIP has three parental figures (father [cis-male], mother [cis-female] and stepparent [hermaphrodite], all of whom are married to each other) and is also a lesbian; her girlfriend is bi.

 

I messed around with this in my current WIP. Families (especially wealthy families) regularly include up to 4 spouses of any gender. So one of my characters is male and has 1 husband and 2 wives. In their society, the max is 4 (total) but those without more than 1 are considering poor because they can't support a larger family.

 

Hmm...I totally agree; it's fantasy, why do we have to accept these things? Subverting them could be fun.

In (one of) my WIP's, I have a cult which (in addition to other beliefs) completely demonizes sexuality. They refer to one another using familial terms; people of the same age are "brothers/sisters," people older are "mothers/fathers," people younger are "sons/daughters." Thus familial relationships are rendered completely meaningless. The nuclear family isn't exactly restructured, it doesn't exist.

(Reproduction is a legalized ceremony which the participants are not expected to take pleasure in, and their memories of the experience are erased afterward.)

 

I have considered this already, but it's an excellent topic of discussion. I have been developing a race not unlike gnomes with different views about marriage and mating.

Firstly, they are typically a matriarchal society, mostly due to the natural 2-1 female/male ratio. Beyond that they are a meritocracy, believing that is always someone who is best to fill a certain role.

Secondly, there is no concept in their society for marriage at all. If a woman wants a baby, she chooses a male and with the blessing of a priestess they spend a week together and then go their separate ways. That offspring is raised by a collective of educators and priestesses. There is very little emotional attachment between mother/ father and children. Thus, the surnames they are given have more to do with their abilities/talents than with matrilineal/patrilineal lines.

Lastly, sex is a deliberate exercise, they are very restrictive about "random encounters." They can only have spur-of-the-moment encounters during a week-long religious festival that honors the goddess of fertility. Masks are worn at all times so the various rungs of the social hierarchy can mingle freely.


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That sounds a bit like my merfolk; they're also matriarchal and matrilineal, and have a female:male:hermaphrodite ratio of 6:3:1. They don't have surnames, exactly -- children are given names like Rain-on-Waves or Reflection-of-Stars, and their matronyms blend the names of the child and their mother (or carrier, in the case of a hermaphrodite giving birth) with the word "under" denoting lineage. Ex. Rain-on-Waves, daughter of Colors-of-Coral, is also known as Rain-under-Coral.

 

I have indeed subverted social structures from time to time, including in one of my current WIPs.

However, for some reason, writing about different social structures has generally fallen more in the realm of Sci Fi than Fantasy.

Although IIRC a certain successful self published writer who posts from time to time on this site has done this...

 

I think a society like this would make an amazing basis for a gunpowder fantasy: the story of the commoners creating or importing gunpowder to overwhelm the tyrannical magocracy.

 

Somebody write this.

*remembers that saying, "write the book you want to read"*

I have my work cut out for me, do i? So many books I want to read...

 

Firstly, I just have to quickly mention that Skip's gnomes sound awesome. I'd love to read about them.

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Now, as for the topic at hand: I agree that there's a lot to play around with, and frankly, I'm guilty of sidelining it quite a bit. But I suppose it comes back to the whole new/familiar dynamic. I.e. leave some things familiar, rather than changing every single thing that is possible to be changed.

But, at the same time, the moment you add a new element to a story, you need to look at how your social dynamics will change.

E.g. the magiarchy as mentioned above. When you have magic, and wizards with ridiculous power, it would be quite a natural shift to something like this, where they gain social power by way of their ability to set everyone on fire. In the same way, if you have a magic that only awakens in every 5th child born, you'll see a lot more families with children in multiples of 5.

 

Pratchet had this in one of his books, the eight son of the eight son would be a creativ magus, kind of a very powerful wizzard.

 

Every eighth son of an eighth son is a normal wizard. If a wizard has eight sons, however, that kid is "a wizard squared... a source of magic... a Sourcerer."

 

Normally magicians are the most powerful individuals but in my project they're slaves, it involves a covert magical ruling class who have subjugated all other mages and forbidden the magical language. As my magic system is language based it means that this ruling class has a monopoly on personally useful magic. However, no one knows that the ruling class are magicians (rather than just "commoners" using magically powered weapons)...
However, simply killing people with the ability to become magicians is so wasteful. So, the ruling class made these magicians into slaves, taught only how to channel power for storage into crystals for later use. These essentially free sources of power were then used to power a magical industrial revolution, meaning larger cities, less agrarian lifestyles, easy healing, quick transport etc. and a social structure built upon that of a magician slave class.
Seeing as I like darker themes, the slave class manages to escape from their centralized magical powerplant (it's not actually called that) - it's not necessary for them to learn magic as all the machines grind to a halt and you have pure anarchy due to the lack of a power source. And due to the easy availability of free magical power there is no steam powered transportation or gunpowder and other non-magical progress has been retarded. Because of this chaos, the slaves are able to escape the continent and learn useful magic, whereupon you get two factions - one who wish to reassert the old order of magical supremacy, and the other faction who feel guilty for the death and chaos as a result of the withdrawal of magical power (think all the oil in the world dissappears overnight, all the nuclear fuel too, solar panels, wind farms etc).

 

Naturally, the elites are going to be the top dogs of your society.

However, who the elites are depends on what that society values. If they value knowledge, then scholars will rule, or warriors if they value the strength and tactical knowledge.

If your society is religious, then the elites would likely be priests.

It can be fun to combine those classes. You could have society run by warrior priests, scholar priests, warriors who value the pursuit of knowledge and education, etc.

The elites could also be the possessors of a scarce resource that the common people highly value.