adventures in inheritance

[marycatelli]

The heroine is simple, as she is merely the daughter of two traveling professional letter writers.  A freewoman, not a noble, not even gentry, though her status as a clerk does give her some clout.  It's the hero of the piece.

On one hand, he's going to have to command some men, and while he's young, too.  Blood would work best in this society, and a connection to the commander of the forces would be best.  On the other hand, I don't want him a plausible heir to the commander, because I don't want there to be a plausible heir, in order to give his wife enough room for her machinations.

wrassle, wrassle, wrassle.

At the point I'm thinking of female-line descent -- especially useful in a martial society such as this one -- and possibly a morgantic marriage as well.  Not illegitimate, because it might prove necessary for him to be an implausible heir, as in, men who absolutely can't stand what is happening rally behind him.

This is because we have another character -- hmm, a woman -- who expected to inherit.  (Female-line can't be too much of a problem, then.)  The man in question thought she was illegitimate and went to disinherit her.  She murdered him, rendering the entire question moot because a murderer can not inherit from a victim.  Still, two questions of illegitimacy would confuse issues, since I don't think they would resonate thematically.

Comments

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

Thematic resonance is in the ear of the reader.

Or, how about packing the court with some other cases of nullified 'inheritance' (of one sort or another), with or without last minute switcheroos?

[marycatelli]

Gives the court too much clout. The killer-can't-inherit stems from the natural refusal of men-at-arms to obey the killer rather than avenge the death. (And she even then gets men because the new heir is too distant. Or possibly was regarded as disloyal.)

[nagasvoice.livejournal.com]

Maybe you'll be able to distinguish among *types* of female inheritance that are allowed or not, going back into the structure of the society. Maybe some types are okay as a backup when the usual patriarchy fails, but others are never allowed, and still others may be arguable. In regular patriarchy they have the arguments where higher rank illegitimate may end up arguably the same level as with lower rank legitimate--arguable being the main point there.

[marycatelli]

Yeah, it's the sort of society where there would be a lot of different inheritance forms.