Morgan-Marriages · 3:44am Jul 18th, 2014
Introduction
This is a form of polygamy of very ancient origin among Ponies, which has repeatedly appeared in the history of Ponies as a civilized species. The Equestrian variant is called a "Morgan-Marriage" because it is most prominent in the coastal communities of the Duchy of Morgan (northeastern Equestria, to the north and east of Manehattan running all the way from Morgan out to Mane) than in other parts of the land. The custom is known but less commonly practiced in other parts of the land.
Description
The essence of a Morgan-Marriage is a marital unit consisting of two or more mares and one or more stallions, with there usually being more mares than stallions. The stallion normally mates with all the mares; if there is more than one stallion then both stallions mate with all the mares. This is part of the design, as it ensures that if there is more than one stallion, paternity is debatable and hence each stallion must logically assume that he may be the father.
The most normal sort of Morgan-Marriage comprises two mares and one stallion. Any children are deemed to be part of the nuclear family comprising all the wives and the husband or husband, though often the children of one mare will address the other mare as "Aunt" rather than "Mother." The same is not true for multiple stallions, unless a stallion is known to not be the child's father (in which case he might be addressed as "Uncle").
For obvious reasons, the most stable sort of Morgan-Marriage is the basic one (two mares and one stallion) and this is only stable if the two mares have very strongly positive emotional affect toward one another. For this reason the two mares will usually, the two mares will be sisters, best friends, or lovers. Also for obvious reasons, the stallion must feel strong love toward both mares. One variant of the Morgan-Marriage is one specifically-contracted to give the children of two bisexual or lesbian mares a legitimate father; in this case, the stallion would at least be a very good friend to both mares.
Origins
The Primal Ponies often dwelt in herds of mares which included a few stallions of which one was dominant and had most of the mating opportunities. Since this was long before civilization, competition for dominance might well be violent. This created a general sociobiological tendency among Ponies to accept as natural a mating arrangement in which there were more mares than stalllions, and each stallion had multiple partners; though many other cultures and customs existed between the Primal Plains and the Time of Extermination.
During the Time of Extermination (around 6000 years BP) the Pony civilizations were shattered by enemies of whom Tirek the Annhihilator was the most prominent. The Ponies were subjected to very intense evolutionary pressure, both biological and cultural. The most common culture among those which survived long enough to recover during the Salvation and the Reclamation involved the fission of society into mare-herds and stallion-herds, with the mare-herds being sedentary and the stallion-herds nomadic.
The civilization of the Age of Wonders, built upon the lore transmitted by The Megan, was monogamous and created in imitation of that which The Megan herself possessed. When Ponies were once again subjected to intense evolutionary pressure, during and following the Cataclysm, they began to develop more distinctly equine civilizations. Some of these included polygamy.
A very common tendency in Pony cultures was to consider stallions more expendable than mares, because mares were the bottleneck on any community's reproduction. To take advantage of the implied ability to recover from population crashes, however, it was essential for some form of culturally-approved polygyny to evolve, so that reproduction could remain mostly within the bonds and social controls of marriage. The reason this was essential was that this increased the chance of survival to reproductive age of the children.
It was on the Morgan coast -- then the Southeastern Coast of the Old Crystal Empire -- long before the migration of the Three Tribes southward, that the Morgan-Marriage emerged. The coast-dwellers were largely maritime Ponies, who lived by trading and fishing. The ships were almost entirely crewed by stallions, for two good reasons -- the distraction which mares in estrus would have caused among stallions in the confines of a sailing ship, and the fact that these voyages were dangerous, and hence the more expendable gender was preferred (some mare-only ships also existed, but were less common).
This meant that, if a mare married a stallion, there would be a very good chance that he would die at sea, widowing the mare. This was bad from more than an emotional standpoint because it took two Ponies to support a family; the widowed mare might find herself in economic distress if all her children were too young to help make ends meet. The Morgan-Marriage emerged as a solution to this dilemma.
There was already a significant stallion-shortage in the coastal communities, because stallions tended to die at sea. In consequence, there were numerous unmarried mares. Some of these mares realized that if two of them married one stallion, they might both have children; and if the marriage remained unbroken by his death, they could unite their earning power to support the children until they could find another stallion to father more children.
It of course took centuries for this to evolve from a strange custom practiced in a few odd towns by not-entirely-respectable Ponies to an accepted and fairly normal practice among seafarers and their mares, but such is what happened over time. Two events ensured that the custom would survive: the Coming of the Ice and the Age of Discord.
The Coming of the Ice disrupted oceanic navigation routes and made seafaring far more dangerous. The Age of Discord was far worse -- the chaos Discord created made any kind of travel difficult and dangerous. During the Age of Discord, the tendency of mares to remain within communities, where they were relatively safe from the horrors Discord loosed for his own amusement on the countryside, and the stallion-shortage (because stallions were the expendable sex and hence mostly fought such horrors) grew worse.
Morgan-Marriage spread from Morgan proper to all the coastal communities of Equestria, and indeed to all the subcultures involved in venturing out of town gates during this dark millennium. Specifically affected by this were Guards of all kinds, Couriers, Sailors, and Caravan-Traders (it was during this time that the rather wild culture of the itinerant Earth-Ponies developed).
After the Fall of Discord, and particularly after the successful Unification of Equestria, Morgan-Marriages faded among most Ponies, though they survived among soldiers, seafarers and caravan traders venturing into dangerous lands. As travel both by sea and land have become safer and safer, and as life insurance has become more common, the old function of Morgan-Marriages as a form of protection against disaster has largely faded. At the same time, as personal happiness has become increasingly-important among a richer and more civilized population, the role of such marriages as a means for lesbian couples to secure legitimate parentage for their children has increased.
Conclusion
Morgan-Marriages are one of the many marital variants existing among modern Equestrians, made acceptable by the general cultural focus on Love and Friendship. They are something of a declining custom, however, and it is uncertain how well they will survive into the coming generations and centuries.
Interesting. Now I want to know how this ties in with your stories! (I especially want to know about those itinerant earth ponies.)
I'm wondering if the great irony of this all ever struck Discord, Celestia and Luna, who got to see the custom spread. Namely, that if practiced at the end at Paradise Estate it would have resolved their love triangle rather decisively -- though of course they had rather larger problems.
Not, of course, that the Sisters were talking civilly to Discord during most of that thousand years. And afterward he wasn't a very interesting conversational partner for the next fifteen hundred. Plus, Celestia and Luna weren't getting along very well during the last thousand of those years.
Ah well. Missed opportunities.
I got the idea from this from the continuities of other writers who have postulated extreme stallion shortages (2:1 or greater female-to-male ratios). In a situation like that, polygyny would be about the only way to run society and still have the institution of marriage survive (otherwise, you're down to stud farms, which is obviously not the way Equestria works as we see it on TV).
Now in my world there is a mild stallion shortage caused by the tradition for stallions to take the more dangerous and physically-wearing outdoors jobs, which in turn dates back to the time before estrus suppressors were cheap enough for universality. The ratio's more like 3:4 or 3:5 -- however, this is mainly caused by stallions predeceasing mares (so you have a lot of lonely old widows, but closer to a 1:1 ratio among the young to middle aged, who are most likely to actually get married).
However, there are obviously communities in which a lot of stallions would be dying very young, if we assume that the sexes are occupationally-segregated before the estrus suppressors and that stallions get the more dangerous work. This would leave a lot of young widows, which creates a problem.
There's another way to solve it, which some Himalayan tribes of Humans practice, which is sibling polyandry. In those societies, the really renumerative work is done by men and women can't support themselves without men. So a woman marries two men, normally two brothers, and remains married even if one of the brothers dies.
But that obviously doesn't work if there is a shortage of men. So instead, we see two mares -- often sisters -- marrying one stallion. And the same result is achieved -- all the children are legitimate, but even if the stallion dies, there are two mares to support the children. And the two mares can, perhaps, remarry.
It's less obvious since this happens less often, but the same is true if one of the mares predeceases the stallion. There is still a mare taking care of the children, and the husband eventually returning home with the fruits of his voyage. It is even possible that another mare -- perhaps a younger sister or friend of the surviving mare -- will then marry into the family to re-form the Morganic-Marriage.
Basically, this is a compromise between the need to cushion families against the possible horrors of the Age of Discord (and the lesser dangers of the times before and after, among high-risk occupations) and the inherent instability of a large Heinlein-esque "line-marriage" (the fundamental problem with any multiple marriage is that all possible combinations of individuals must get along, and it starts to get very unstable as the factorials build).
This system wouldn't work very well for Humans -- which is why Humans have rarely done this -- but it could work better for the inherently-kindlier Ponies. I don't see it being at all stable past four or five members in the marriage, though -- not even for Ponies. And familial stability is vital, since it's what the whole custom is meant to ensure for the children, who are the ultimate beneficiaries and purpose of any marital system.
I got the notion of the itinerant Earth Ponies from Sev's Stories From the Front, the very NSFW (heck, pornographic!) adventures of the nymphomaniac adventurer Stormfront the Pegasus (unlike Cloud Kicker, Stormy is a likeable, though an extremely strange and possibly-insane, Pony). Her father was one of those, and I decided I inherently liked the idea of Earth Pony gyspies.
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I've also thought about writing stories specifically about the Morgan-Marriages during the Age of Discord. There's some dramatic potential there, I think.
I'll be interested to see those stories! ^_^ As well as possibilities you might end up dragging in for Modern Equestria. Are any of the Mane 6 likely to get into Morgan Marriage ? Anypony else we know?
In other news, in my own mind I've recently been thinking of reasons why Ponies might have herd relationships without there being an overt Y-Chromosome shortage...
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Well, it still happens in modern Equestria, though not as often as it once did. My original for this, by the way, was an old term for a purely female romantic-friendship or even lesbian relationship, the Boston Marriage.
One obvious couple who might do this are Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy. I'm sure there are timelines where they do. Rainbow actually likes one of the most obvious candidates for husband in such a triad. Though very much dislikes the other.
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Come to think of it Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash even make symbolic sense in terms of my far-future -- 'Shy's a terraformer, Dash a defender of the new worlds won.
I do love how you extrapolate all of this logically and reasonably.
Also, I'm now wondering what Apple Strudel's story is. Sure, he may just be an old farmer, but I like the idea of him on the field of battle, resplendent in his glittering battle lederhosen. And recounting sanitized war stories to his wide-eyed grandchildren.
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Wait, what did I say here about Apple Strudel? Though you're right, he's a veteran and a pretty Badass one too ...
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I extrapolated it from your big comment.
Ergo, old stallions are either noncombatants or surviving veterans.
2296643 I was going to make some sensible and erudite comment, thanking and complimenting Jordan for his work and then you just had to throw out the battle lederhosen comment and anything sensible went out the window.
ChuckFinley did says he'd take commissions....
I very much like this idea. It does explain, as you said, how ideas of marriage could survive if the mares heavily outnumber the stallions. It also opens the door for some skullduggery when dealing with story ideas.
This line in particular this is only stable if the two mares have very strongly positive emotional affect toward one another. For this reason the two mares will usually, the two mares will be sisters, best friends, or lovers.
Does make me think of Aloe and Lotus, for some reason. Possibly similar customs developed among the Stalliongrad ponies in the centuries during which they were the edge of pony civilization? I do remember reading something years ago about how among the cossacks, married women could (sometimes) take lovers who were almost spouses when their husbands were gone on raids for months to a few years at a time. Of course, when he came back the new guy better get out unless he wanted a shashka through his midriff.
And is it just me, or does the origin of this custom among the seafarers sound similar in some ways to the marriage customs detailed in Andre Norton's Witch Wold book among her sea-folk, the Sulcar?
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Yes. Note that the stallion shortage comes from an increased death rate among stallions during times of danger. The polygyny becomes culturally useful to let the mares take advantage of the fact that one stallion can easily keep more than one mare at a time pregnant without threatening the institution of marriage. There was always a tension between Morgan-Marriage polygyny (which elevates the importance of any surviving stallions) and the overall matriarchy of Equestrian civilization, which is why it only tends to survive in situations of perceived danger to stallions and stallion-shortage, or as a means of lesbians to give their children stable fathers (in which case the stallion in such a marriage cannot dominate by with-holding sex because the mares only want him for sex very occasionally).
Oh, there are lots of possibilities. I hinted at possible tensions within the marriage several ways by what I said and did not say about it. For instance, what happens if the mares in the marriage quarrel? What if the stallion comes to greatly favor one mare over the other? What, if in non-standard variants (more than one stallion or more than two mares) all sorts of complex sexual and social dynamics rear their ugly heads. What if quarrels ensue about how to raise the children? Over which children to favor, or avoid favoring?
The Ponies are nicer than Humans, so they can make this work better than Humans could, but they are NOT perfect.
Sounds very likely. Aloe and Lotus are very close (though thankfully not as close as Discord made them) -- exactly the sort of mares who could make such a marriage work without undue jealousy. And the harsh environment around Stalliongrad could create a high death toll among the stallions, leading to a stallion shortage.
I don't remember the Sulcar well -- it's been a while since I read most of the Witch World books, but I can see her reasoning in a similar manner. Andre Norton often created unusual marital customs for unusual situations, and understood human nature well enough to not have them simply be a version on Free Love Futures. She often picked ones which allowed for really good Gothic romance dynamics, as well!
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I liked how this was solved in Xenophilia, and it might bear some note here.
1. There is a "lead mare" who's job is to make sure the house runs smoothly. If one mare is a problem element, she solves it.
2. The lead mare also solves the problem of matriarchy vs polygyny. While the stallion is a pretty important "glue," he's still subordinate to his alpha mare.
Now obviously that doesn't solve every problem(and could bring up some new ones?
). Xeno actually acknowledges this when some characters worry about a stallion favoring one mare to the point of shunning others(cough
cough). There's probably no way to safely fix that particular problem...
Just came across this blog post and I really enjoyed how much thought you put into this. I've read many stories where herd marriages are a thing, but outside of some of the longer epic stories or historical fiction type stories, many of them didn't delve much beyond convenience or just an excuse to have happy sexy times with more than one favorite character.