Same-sex marriage in Golarion

[Lady Kamari Ipeq]

My understanding is that same-sex marriage is widely accepted in Golarion.

How does that work for noble families where dynastic succession is an issue?

[GM Rednal]

It... varies. Including, in part, based on the country involved and local views about the importance of proper succession. Here are some potential ways they could deal with it:

-No Same-Sex Marriage: It's simply not allowed, or at least not allowed until after they've created an heir. Essentially a political marriage if there's no love involved, which isn't exactly uncommon among nobility to begin with.
--Alternate Plan: Explicit same-sex marriage isn't allowed because of dynastic reasons, but nobody cares if the noble has a lover on the side in political marriages, especially if they're reasonably discreet about it and the 'official' spouse is treated well.

-Allow Same-Sex Marriage: It's just allowed, and incumbent upon the family to ensure that its line somehow continues. There may or may not be regulations designed to "encourage" having an heir. Noble families could also have other members inherit. ("It goes to my brother's kids after my wife and I die...")

-Magic: Elixirs of Sex Shifting are a thing. One of them could transform long enough to get the other pregnant, then drink another dose to reverse it, and this is well within their budget. Not especially difficult, and probably not frowned upon in more relaxed societies.

[thejeff]

I think the first and deeper question is "What is marriage in Golarion?"
Is it like marriage today, essentially a partnership of equals based on love? Or is it like marriage was throughout much of history, especially among nobility, an arranged business contract?
Often with the woman being basically owned by the man. Though same-sex marriage isn't likely in a setting where that's the case. If women and men have different legal roles in a marriage, you would have to decide in a same-sex marriage who would take which role.

If marriages are arranged, the individual's orientation likely won't be considered, or at least not always deferred to. Which would usually lead to straight marriages, but possibly in some cases where alliances were desperately needed, but only individuals of the same sex were available, same-sex marriages would be used, again regardless of the preferences of the people in question. Straight ones would be preferred because the children form a stronger bond.

In a nicer version of the world, people would be allowed to make their own choices, at least from the suitable candidates. In same sex cases, some arrangement would need to made for heirs. Traditional marriage would likely be encouraged, because it makes things easier. But a same-sex couple could adopt or foster a relative's child as an heir, for example. Or resort to some form of magic to produce their own child

[Myrryr]

thejeff wrote:

I think the first and deeper question is "What is marriage in Golarion?"

Is it like marriage today, essentially a partnership of equals based on love? Or is it like marriage was throughout much of history, especially among nobility, an arranged business contract?
Often with the woman being basically owned by the man. Though same-sex marriage isn't likely in a setting where that's the case. If women and men have different legal roles in a marriage, you would have to decide in a same-sex marriage who would take which role.

If marriages are arranged, the individual's orientation likely won't be considered, or at least not always deferred to. Which would usually lead to straight marriages, but possibly in some cases where alliances were desperately needed, but only individuals of the same sex were available, same-sex marriages would be used, again regardless of the preferences of the people in question. Straight ones would be preferred because the children form a stronger bond.

In a nicer version of the world, people would be allowed to make their own choices, at least from the suitable candidates. In same sex cases, some arrangement would need to made for heirs. Traditional marriage would likely be encouraged, because it makes things easier. But a same-sex couple could adopt or foster a relative's child as an heir, for example. Or resort to some form of magic to produce their own child

Drastically different across the planet. For example, goblins don't marry and most chiefs have 5-10 wives that are basically just breeding and pleasure toys. Dragons don't marry, and their courtships vary dramatically between colors.

Drow are so matriarchal that not only do the females eschew having male husbands, they outright have multiple male consorts and boytoys... and engage in incest, as a father, brother or son has no real rights to refuse an amorous, demon worshipping sister, daughter or mother. And while drow women don't marry each other very often, it does happen occasionally, just generally entirely for political reasons.

In the human kingdoms, keep in mind that James has said 'everyone in Golarion is bi unless stated otherwise' which puts a HUGE pressure for everywhere to be open to same-sex couplings. In fact, in places like Cheliax, where Asmodeus worship is a thing and he's highly misogynistic, I'd imagine being in a male-male relationship is seen as the most pure thing you can attain.

And of course magic can pretty easily solve any heir issues. It's not exactly difficult.

[GM Rednal]

I'm not sure that it's pressure so much as... "If you want them to be romanceable in your game, then unless there's a really obvious reason otherwise, their preferences fit the players".

(So less "everyone is actually bi" and more "everyone you want to be is". Basically, plot convenience. XD)

[thejeff]

Myrryr wrote:

In the human kingdoms, keep in mind that James has said 'everyone in Golarion is bi unless stated otherwise' which puts a HUGE pressure for everywhere to be open to same-sex couplings. In fact, in places like Cheliax, where Asmodeus worship is a thing and he's highly misogynistic, I'd imagine being in a male-male relationship is seen as the most pure thing you can attain.

Yeah, I'll need to see the quote on that. Sounds to me like there's a lot of context missing.

That would be a huge setting difference.

[GM Rednal]

I'm not sure of the actual context of that quote... but like I said above, I think it was on the idea of NPCs being romanced. Pathfinder generally tries to be inclusive, and I think the idea was that NPC sexual preferences should generally match player preferences in each game. Basically, "do whatever works best for your table", and also "Don't make players feel attacked or that their preferences are wrong - we're all here to have fun".

In a practical sense, this basically means assuming areas are inclusive about sexual preferences unless noted otherwise.

[Helaman]

I have seen one of the PFS modules, the merchants wake, where the main NPC was in a same sex marriage.

[Simeon]

Helaman wrote:

I have seen one of the PFS modules, the merchants wake, where the main NPC was in a same sex marriage.

Paizo is cool like that.

[Shisumo]

thejeff wrote:

Myrryr wrote:

In the human kingdoms, keep in mind that James has said 'everyone in Golarion is bi unless stated otherwise' which puts a HUGE pressure for everywhere to be open to same-sex couplings. In fact, in places like Cheliax, where Asmodeus worship is a thing and he's highly misogynistic, I'd imagine being in a male-male relationship is seen as the most pure thing you can attain.

Yeah, I'll need to see the quote on that. Sounds to me like there's a lot of context missing.

That would be a huge setting difference.

I'm about 93% sure it was made in the context of the NPCs of the Jade Regent Adventure Path.

[Alleran]

thejeff wrote:

Myrryr wrote:

In the human kingdoms, keep in mind that James has said 'everyone in Golarion is bi unless stated otherwise' which puts a HUGE pressure for everywhere to be open to same-sex couplings. In fact, in places like Cheliax, where Asmodeus worship is a thing and he's highly misogynistic, I'd imagine being in a male-male relationship is seen as the most pure thing you can attain.

Yeah, I'll need to see the quote on that. Sounds to me like there's a lot of context missing.

That would be a huge setting difference.

As far as I can recall offhand, it was indeed for the purposes of whether or not NPCs can be romanced by PCs (I think it was during JR, given the heavy NPC relationships and romance themes threaded throughout). Unless there was further expansion and/or other explanations elsewhere (which may be the case), I would hesitate before any attempt to extrapolate any societal development from it.

Brief skim of Google:

Link 1 (Jessica Price)
Link 2 (James Jacobs)

In relation to NPCs in general, for the purposes of NPC-PC romance or similar.

[Jessica Price]

thejeff wrote:

Myrryr wrote:

In the human kingdoms, keep in mind that James has said 'everyone in Golarion is bi unless stated otherwise' which puts a HUGE pressure for everywhere to be open to same-sex couplings. In fact, in places like Cheliax, where Asmodeus worship is a thing and he's highly misogynistic, I'd imagine being in a male-male relationship is seen as the most pure thing you can attain.

Yeah, I'll need to see the quote on that. Sounds to me like there's a lot of context missing.

That would be a huge setting difference.

It's important to understand the difference between "what this NPC is in terms of running a game," and "what everyone in the world is actually like."

When James says everyone on Golarion is bi unless stated otherwise, that doesn't mean that 99% of the people living on Golarion are actually bisexual.

It means that for purposes of your game, the NPCs are plotsexual unless stated otherwise. E.g. if a male PC wants to flirt with a male bartender, as the GM, you should consider having the bartender flirt back, unless there's something in the text that specifically says the bartender is only interested in women.

It also means that just because a character has a female ex, you don't need to assume he's only interested in women.

It's also worth noting that not every culture on Golarion follows a post-Renaissance, Western idea of marriage, nuclear families, etc.

In some cultures on Golarion, marriage is primarily about alliances, finances, or connecting extended families, and less about creating a nuclear family or even about child-bearing.

And that's not even just in fantasy--in matrilineal cultures on Earth, for example, the biological father of the children is sometimes not considered important, because the child's identity, family membership, inheritance, etc. is all determined through the mother. The primary male caregiver isn't the biological father, but the mother's brother(s), who are considered the children's closest male relatives. The concept of an "illegitimate" birth generally doesn't exist.

(One of the reasons marriage was so important in noble families in Europe was because inheritance was patrilineal, so you needed that arrangement to lock down the women's sexual activity and ensure that you knew who the father of a child was. Whereas all of that stuff doesn't matter in a strictly matrilineal society, because you always know who the child's mother is.)

So, in a matrilineal culture in Golarion, theoretically there would be no stigma against same-sex marriage, because if marriage even exists, it's dissociated from children's family identity/inheritance rights.

[Liane Merciel]

There are some interesting (and thoughtful) examples of how to handle same-sex relationships in various cultures sprinkled throughout the Tales novels, too.

In Pirate's Promise (Okeno), the courtesan Vreva and inquisitor Zarina strike up a romance without any real suggestion that the same-sex nature of their relationship is scandalous (to the extent that it's a secret, that has more to do with their respective careers than the genders of the people involved). Marriage isn't really on the horizon for other reasons, but there doesn't seem to be any social stigma attached that would prevent it.

In Beyond the Pool of Stars (Sargava), a major point of internal character conflict is that Ivrian Galanor (who is gay and has no evident romantic attraction to women) needs to marry a woman and produce an heir to continue his noble family's lineage, as his line appears set to die out if he doesn't. His mother and the other characters seem to be vaguely indulgent of his previous relationships but don't appear to be take them very seriously; iirc his mother's view at the beginning of the story is that Ivrian's prior relationships were fine for playing around, but at some point he'll have to grow up and honor his family responsibilities. There's a suggestion that he can marry a woman and keep male lovers on the side, but he still needs to marry a woman for sociopolitical reasons.

And then on the (near) opposite end of the spectrum you have glimpses of the Iridian Fold's view in the web fiction "Boar and Rabbit" and in The Redemption Engine, where we see that those characters view male-male same-sex relationships as the highest form of communion between two people and don't believe that hetero (or lesbian, probably) relationships are capable of reaching the same level. It's not marriage, exactly, but it seems to be something far more intense than that.

So my sense from the fiction is that there's no one answer. Different cultures have different views, and different people within those cultures have different views. That strikes me as reasonably true to life and, certainly, much more interesting in a fictional world where conflicts and complications are key to telling engaging stories.

My feeling is that if it's better for your campaign to throw up obstacles to a PC's love story, do it; there's support in the material. If it's better to give them a smooth road ahead, there's support in the material for that, too.

[CBDunkerson]

I think part of the 'problem' is differentiating between Golarion's support for same sex relationships and Paizo's.

Paizo is very supportive of different sexual orientations, transgender individuals, and sexual fluidity in general. Good on them, BUT this also tends to create the impression that all of these things are generally accepted across much of Golarion. After all we have examples of great characters in the Tales (as Liane notes above), APs, and other materials who embrace these various life-styles with little to no dis-approval being mentioned. Does that mean bigoted attitudes towards these things don't exist / are rare on Golarion? Or only that Paizo wanted to celebrate and support such views and thus didn't introduce prejudice against them?

Ultimately, I think everyone's Golarion should be different on this issue (and many others). Do what works for your group. Some people might very well be unnerved to have their lifestyle 'attacked' via an NPC. Others might welcome the chance to explore and correct bigoted views. Touchy subjects which should be handled with care.

[thejeff]

Another part of the problem is mixing modern views on such things with tropes from more traditional material. Even beyond same-sex marriage, it's really hard to work any sort of enlightened attitude in with pseudo-feudal inheritance and marriage for alliance and power. In that sort of world, everyone has a use, including and especially royal or noble children. Daughters are useful for the alliances they can bring. Their wishes (and often the wishes of the men they marry) are irrelevant.
How do you translate that into a world where women are emancipated and form relationships as they choose, gay or straight? I don't really have good answers.

This is partly on my mind now because I just finished Nancy Griffith's Hild, which is a fictional childhood & youth of Saint Hild in the 7th century during the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity and the (partial) unification of England. There's much on the use of various daughters as peaceweavers and on the role of women in general.

[MMCJawa]

CBDunkerson wrote:

I think part of the 'problem' is differentiating between Golarion's support for same sex relationships and Paizo's.

Paizo is very supportive of different sexual orientations, transgender individuals, and sexual fluidity in general. Good on them, BUT this also tends to create the impression that all of these things are generally accepted across much of Golarion. After all we have examples of great characters in the Tales (as Liane notes above), APs, and other materials who embrace these various life-styles with little to no dis-approval being mentioned. Does that mean bigoted attitudes towards these things don't exist / are rare on Golarion? Or only that Paizo wanted to celebrate and support such views and thus didn't introduce prejudice against them?

Ultimately, I think everyone's Golarion should be different on this issue (and many others). Do what works for your group. Some people might very well be unnerved to have their lifestyle 'attacked' via an NPC. Others might welcome the chance to explore and correct bigoted views. Touchy subjects which should be handled with care.

I think in general they do put across the idea that their is nothing wrong with any of the above, and suggest that when you see discrimination, it will at best come from neutral to evil sources, not people/religions/governments with a G in the alignment. So sure, maybe same-sex relationships are frowned upon in Cheliax for instance, but then they are a bunch of devil worshippers, so not really a source you can trust (I don't actually know what Cheliax's views are, this is just an example...)

That's fine from my perspective because players sometimes don't want to have to deal with the discrimination they might face in real life, and Golarion exists in a setting where alignment, and thus good and evil, are quantifiable and known.

[Dragonchess Player]

Historical cultures (which are largely the basis behind RPG cultures) are... uneven on the acceptance of same-sex relationships/marriage.

In general, cultures with extremely strong patriarchal and patrilineal values are the ones that are least accepting of same-sex relationships. However, even they can be quirky: in some cases (see Albania) it is possible for a woman to legally be treated as a man or otherwise gain the "perks" of being a man in society (usually having to do with authority and inheritance) by performing the same social responsibilities (typically crafts, production of raw goods, and/or warfare).

More moderate patriarchal/patrilineal cultures will emphasize a "proper" hetero relationship/marriage, but allow (or even encourage in some cases) "experimentation" and/or "expanded" relationships, as long as inheritance in the male line is provided for. For example, many pre-Christian cultures were fairly accepting of bisexuality, even when patriarchal/patrilineal; at least as long as male descent could be clearly determined. Male-male and female-female relationships were not controversial, nor male-multiple female; only female-multiple (simultaneous) male relationships were considered dangerous, because of the problems caused to inheritance and child-rearing responsibilities.