geeky15. Formal courtship is still alive and well in Faerie, and involves a great deal of poetry, flowers, and elaborate ritual. It is customary for the person being courted to thank the person doing the courting for each step after the first, to remind them that they have an obligation to finish what they've started. If you see a couple of moon-struck young fae thanking each other a lot, they're engaged in a formal courtship.
14. Most purebloods speak and utilize the ritual language of flowers when courting; every bouquet is a poem in and of itself. Never buy a Daoine Sidhe flowers from Safeway, you'll just confuse them.
13. The majority of fae marriages do not result in children, and are dissolved without issue by the participants. In these cases, it's not even really considered a "divorce," so much as a parting of the ways, and there is almost always no resentment between them. In some cases, people will even dissolve a marriage, and then turn around and marry the siblings of their former spouses, just because they're bored, but enjoy the overall dynamic of their extended family.
12. Same-sex marriage is relatively common, and even well-regarded, especially by families who do not have titles of their own; long-term fostering leading to formal adoption will usually provide these couples with an heir, and provide the foster's original family with a closer tie to the nobility.
11. Setting quests for a suitor is acceptable, if currently somewhat out of fashion for anyone lower in rank than the heir of a Duke.
10. Because sexual relations with a mortal are not considered infidelity, many married couples will take human lovers from time to time, just to break up the tedium.
9. Marriage to a human is not considered legal or binding under fae law. Consequentially, all changelings are considered bastards.
8. Purebloods have access to incredibly rich, complicated foods in the Summerlands. Their wines are beyond mortal comprehension, their cakes a doorway into divinity. This does not prevent them really, really liking Hershey's chocolate. Many otherwise expensive courtships are heavily centered around Mr. Goodbar. No one knows why.
7. Arranged marriage still occurs among some races of fae. This is a hold-over from when Faerie was very young, and they needed to make sure people were as distantly related as possible. (Fae genetics are weird and not the topic here, and all members of any given race are descended from the same First, but they still wanted to avoid marrying their sisters when possible.) The underground races are especially fond of arranged marriage.
6. But not the Gremlins. Gremlins marry for love, or because you have a really big...forge. There's nothing a Gremlin girl likes better than a man with a really big forge.
5. There are different rules for courtship between a man and a woman, two men, two women, a man and two women, or a woman and two men. Beyond that, they sort of make it up as they go along.
4. Yes, group marriage occurs. It's especially common among Centaurs, Satyrs, Cetacea, and Gremlins. As a rule, we don't ask. Especially not about the Gremlins.
3. It is considered exceedingly rude to break off a courtship in the middle for anything short of "My liege has arranged a marriage for me" or "We're going to war." Once the courting period has been finished and you're just dating, it becomes a lot more acceptable.
2. Watching really traditional purebloods try to court their human lovers is funnier than anything currently on weeknight TV.
1. The fae believe in true love. Even when it hurts them. And because they're going to live forever, they're usually willing to wait until the time is right to buckle down and pursue it. This can make them infuriating to humans and changelings, because they're so damn slow...but when they marry for love, it tends to be forever.
February 15 2011, 22:45:50 UTC 6 years ago
ok, will keep that in mind. LOL
reading this post made my evening after a somewhat blargh day at work.
February 16 2011, 05:28:53 UTC 6 years ago