Marriage has very little to do with child contracts. The two characters party to a child contract don't have to be married. The child contract specifies which parent gets control of the child, so subsequent sparking of a non-custodial NPC parent doesn't affect the custodian's control at all.

Posted By Poldano at 07:57 AM - Fri Mar 29 2019

Marriage has very little to do with child contracts. The two characters party to a child contract don't have to be married. The child contract specifies which parent gets control of the child, so subsequent sparking of a non-custodial NPC parent doesn't affect the custodian's control at all.

I dunno part of me wants to institute the leywrite (tax on unwed mothers) within my lands if I get Neran as planned.

Feels very virtori to insist on saving your contract for marriage.

Posted By chipla at 03:08 AM - Fri Mar 29 2019

Posted By Poldano at 07:57 AM - Fri Mar 29 2019

Marriage has very little to do with child contracts. The two characters party to a child contract don't have to be married. The child contract specifies which parent gets control of the child, so subsequent sparking of a non-custodial NPC parent doesn't affect the custodian's control at all.

I dunno part of me wants to institute the leywrite (tax on unwed mothers) within my lands if I get Neran as planned.

Feels very virtori to insist on saving your contract for marriage.

You are a most magnificent trove of obscure but significant information.

Leywrite - Fine paid by unchaste bondwoman, normally when discovered to be pregnant but unmarried.

If this is what you mean, then it appears to have applied only to servants. Presumably a pregnant woman or a woman with a child would be less valuable as a servant, because she would not be able to work as much or as hard, at least for a time. Since neither of these conditions actually apply in any Elyrian society, the economic rationale would not apply, and only the moral rationale would.

One economic aspect that might apply is that such a person would not be able to participate in another child contract for a time, but if that is an issue it can be handled as a breach of contract or fraud. The general scenario would be if someone were hired as an employee with an explicit stipulation of a child contract at some time of the employer's choosing in the future. If that character then participated in a child contract with another, their employment contract stipulation would be breached, depending upon circumstances.

I'll let you worry about the reactions of your subjects, particularly those in the aristocracy who happen to be enthused with the idea of creating hybrid super-heirs of many tribes. Their ability to do so would be somewhat curtailed by leywrite that applied generally.

To be fair, there should then be a tax on unwed fathers as well. Alternatively, you could make a head tax which could be suspended if the child's contract is between people married to each other.

;-)

Poldano - you're right in that leywrite only really applied to unfree peasants and that historically it's actually taxation on the loss of labour that a lord would experience (punishment for not asking the lord's permission to get knocked up essentially).

Merchet was the tax for marriage that unfree peasants had to pay (and was again a tax on loss of labour)

Obviously, since everyone in CoE is free (at least in medieval terms) the tax would be moralistic rather than an artefact of feudalism I almost certainly wouldn't actually apply it because of how childbearing contracts work but I could see this as a Virtori thing. I also see this sort of thing (like most moralistic laws) falling more heavily on women than on men depending on the exact beliefs of the Virtori.

The easiest way to have a moral tax is ofc to have a stamp tax for child contracts that falls more heavily on unwed couples than on those who have wed.

The problem I see with that. While perhaps accurate to game religion, might upset the players who do not intend to wed. But still need a heir. Or those who intend the more unorthodox lifestyle of a wandering adventurer with a home in your hold. Taxation on your continuation to play a game by another player seems more unorthodox then the thought why marry if I'll never see them. Thus they have a child and leave it with the homestead or bring it with them. A tax for being unwed, while religiously accurate, seems a bit much under the circumstances that games entail.

Eh, I don't really see people sticking with this. It'll end up being a deterrent to living in your land and they'll just go elsewhere so they can have as many babies without getting married.

I should point out I'm not advocating a moral tax - just saying it'd be thematic, something that the Virtori might have (maybe to offset karmic losses similar to indulgences)

If the Virtori had some sort of ritual or sacrament for new children, there would probably be some kind of fee for the service, perhaps graduated by the rank of the individuals involved. This would serve a similar purpose to the tax, and would moreover serve to distinguish devout Virtori from those who might be Faithless.