Intergalactic Summit

I appreciate your more tactful approach to the subject of my father. Yes, my parents faced difficulties in their choice to marry, but in the end they succeeded. I jsut feel no State or governing body should have control over affairs of this matter. I'm not saying people should jump in to marriage, but I am saying people who love each other that much, and in the case of my father willing to possibly sacrifice his own identity and heritage for his chosen family, should be free to do as they wont. That includes marrying.

I don't know, I would be afraid to marry a heretic.

In that case I accept your apology Ms Kernher. I know you're a good capsuleer and adherant of the Faith, and hope not to have a falling out over a matter of doctrine.

Good luck with that Naups. Please let us all know the place, time and date of the nuptials when you find that "special" lady, ok?

I'm quite proud to be seen as a heathen or infidel in the jaundiced eyes of imperials. Better to laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints, rule in hell than serve in heaven and all that.

While we use the word "marriage" to describe all personal unions, it's important to keep in mind that the reality is that it is applied to wide range of customs that evolved independently of eachother in completely different cultural environments. It seems rather close minded to declare that certain sorts are not legitimate simply based on the fact that they don't conform to the traditional notions of one culture in paticular.

As a cosmopolitan society, we have a right to pick our poisons. People who reject this notion are going to find themselves increasingly at the mercy of the growing international metaculture that will probably have eaten all the others in a thousand years from now.

I wasn't really addressing that sentiment, miss Kernher, so much as the general dismissive attitude people seemed to be having regarding marriages that don't fall into convention, regardless of the culture involved. I was just trying to remark in brief that there isn't really a convention to speak of.

I do think the liberalization of marriage as a concept in a cross-cultural sense is inevitable, however. While the Empire can certainly enforce whatever it likes within it's borders, historically speaking, once there is a way to escape a rule in society, that rule tends to begin to break down - At present, any Amarrian commoner (or even Holder for that matter) who finds themselves unable to form a union with a person they want to in the Empire can quite easily go the Federation/Syndicate and flush thousands of years of tradition instantly down the toilet without a care, if they so choose. In the long run, albeit likely the very long run, that is going to start to create problems for the Amarrian system and the pressure peoples families are able to exert on willful individuals who don't want to follow the rules.

My dear Lady Kemher,

While that is a very nice sentiment, I fear it is only a dream.

We are a space-faring people. We are bordered by several cultures that are vastly different than ours. We are currently at war with two of them. Our nominal ally, the Caldari are so different that if it weren't for the other two, we would probably be at war with them.

Our economy is even more enmeshed with other cultures than our military.

We have a long tradition of space-faring. Indeed, we were the first. Is it not God's will that we reach out across the stars to spread His word?

So what are we to do? Are we to close all borders to the Empire? Are we to capitulate to the vile enemies of God? Are we to plunge ourselves into a new dark age by cutting all trade? I say, no. The Jove thought they could, and look at them now.

If the Universe teaches us anything, it that one must adapt or die. We all would love to live in a galaxy where holder and slave, merchant and artisan, lived in peace and harmony under the grace of God. God has not seen fit to give us this kind of galaxy.

Indeed, quite the opposite.

The original post is decadent filth from our enemies, but it does point to a path of adaptation we might want to explore. Consider the following:


"All things were created by the Divine, and so the glory of our faith is inherent to us all;
When thine heart shines with the Light, thou shalt know no hardship;
When thine actions are in Light's name, thou art immortal.’"
- The Scriptures, Book of Trials 2:1

...Ms Mithra, I don't mean to be rude, but I think you might be sort of overanalyzing my remark. I didn't put much detail into it.

I'm aware that it is difficult to immigrate between countries (Though I will comment that the Federation has a well-known mostly-open immigration policy, and that your statement is the first I have heard of the Empire actually restricting the movement of commoners. Could you supply me with a source on that, to feed my academic curiosity?) for both financial and cultural reasons, and that there are a vast range of circumstances that could make it extremely difficult in a case-by-case basis. I'm also aware that the whole affair would likely lead to a lot of social ostracization from ones former peers, and that they certainly wouldn't be going back to the Empire unless their families were of a very tolerant breed. I apologize for not expressing this clearly.

However, I will remind you that I was talking about something taking place over the course of hundreds upon hundreds of years. The people doing as I described right now are probably not the most "well-educated" conformist, rational thinkers in the regard that you seem to be talking about, but rather are likely young, lovestruck and full of resentment to a culture that is not, in the most base of terms, giving them what they want. You're right that they are likely extremely anomalous, but I never suggested they were the end, but rather the beginning. It does not matter that what they are doing is not easy, or even sensible. What matters is that it is possible. People can walk entirely away from the Amarrian marital system and not become outlaws.

Again, cultural change is something that happens extremely slowly - Imagine water sputtering through a crack in a dam. These people are not the surging water blasting through the dams walls and leaving it as a shattered ruin; They are the tiny drops leaking through the system one by one, ever so slowly giving way to more drops at an increasing speed and enlarging the crack. They are people who are going against tradition ever so slightly one at a time, subverting it's legitimacy at a grassroots level, until one day it will have changed just a little bit without anyone even noticing.

How do you think Gallentia went from a conservative feudal society to a hyper-liberal democracy? It certainly wasn't because they all decided one day that all their conventions were a waste of time on the spur of the moment. No tradition is invincible. Tolerated anamolies (assuming they don't stop being tolerated, as miss Kernher is suggesting) tend to give way to normalization, which gives way, in time, to change. That's more or less sociological fact.

I don't think the Amarrian marital tradition is doomed, or anything so dramatic. But I do think it's suffered the first dozen of it's thousand cuts.

The rest of your post is, if I may speak bluntly, coloured by imperiocentricism to the point that I am not really sure how to respond without a lecture. (I could remark on quite a lot about your assertion that marriage has been "reduced to a husk" in the Federation, to the say the least.) Regardless, I will speak my personal opinion, which is that family centric arranged marriages, for all their virtues, tend to foster tribalism and nepotism to unpleasant degrees. Not to mention putting people in some very unhappy positions.

Non- Amarrians may not understand, for our culture Religion and Law are the same thing, so while a Gallente may be 'free' to marry a Quill-rat such would not be legal in Amarr. I agree with these bishops, although it should be noted that any policy must pass the Theology Council before becoming Holy Law.

I think this is touching on a rather delicate and sensitive subject requiring careful handling.

As Valentina astutely noted, when it comes to love, people rarely act rationally. Anyone who has been in love knows this. Love can move us to the most noble and most atrocious acts.

While the romantic ideal is for a marriage to be about love, the reality is that there are many reasons for marriage: political, familial obligation, as well as love. Love is not always a consideration and may be left as something to develop later.

I believe what Ms. Mithra and Ms. Kernher are talking about here is the legal institution of marriage as it exists in the Amarr Empire, which is manifestation of the law of God. To dismiss that out-of-hand would be disrespectful of an entire culture and nullify the possibility of rational debate and discourse on the subject.

I think the question that comes to mind when one, as an outsider to the Empire and their Faith, is confronted with this viewpoint on marriage is the one that has been expressed: What about love? Doesn't love have a place within the tenants of marriage in the Empire?

To this, as an outsider looking in, I would say absolutely yes. I know personally, for a fact that Amarrians are quite capable of love. Beyond just the evidence of the deep abiding love they have for God, I have personally felt love, of one kind or another, extended to me, a heathen, by Amarrians of great Faith.

I think in the case of a devout Amarrian and a heathen being love, you have to look at the depth of that love and what it implies. If the Amarrian truly loves the heathen, they will want to share the joy that their love of God brings them and attempt to bring them into the light that their love of God brings. By the same token, the heathen who loves the Amarrian will know how important their lover's love of God is to them. The heathen may be so moved as to try to come to love God and obtain God's light for themselves, if only because of the love they have for their Amarrian love.

By the same token, the Amarrian may feel that their faith is a barrier between them and their lover, a barrier they feel that they must tear down. This would be a shocking choice to another faithful of God, but as I said, love makes us capable of great nobility and great atrocity by equal turns.

There's no one answer here. There's no simple solution. Each solution is as unique as each relationship, a sum transcendent of its parts.

So while we can say the law says what is written, we cannot ignore that we are touching upon human hearts, the most delicate and volatile of instruments. So, let us tread softly and be mindful of where we step, lest we trample the flowers that grow here.