Polygamy

Just a thought I had.. We all know trolls are polygamic. A male is more or less expected to take several wives, a practise possibly originally spawned from the fact that with the men going to war and getting killed they ended up with more women than men, but the history of it is a bit irrelevant now.

With troll women claiming equal rights to men in the past few years, it seems that most people assume their polygamic traditions have been discarded as well. Why is that? Does having one man and several wives automatically mean he's somehow oppressing them? That they can't work out a way to live fairly and as equals? Or is it that people find the concept difficult and thus avoid rping it? Or is it simply that it's hard enough to find a person to rp -one- partner, and too hard to find several?

Between the original isles being assaulted, Zalazane's betrayal in the Echo Isles and then just general depletion from all the conflicts between then and now, the Darkspear have probably dwindled to an all time low. I would think that polygamy (and if not marriage, at least practical sexual relationships for the good of the tribe) would be more prevalent nowadays. At least with the ones who are more worried about the tribe's future. Though, it is likely that the women are treated with far more respect than they were back in the day (baby-machine!).

For example, let's say you have a strong, virile and intelligent Troll male. Then you have a tribal leader state the fact that numbers are dropping and he stresses the importance of reproduction for the sake of continuing the tribe. You might see several females approach at once of their own free will because a) the male has attractive qualities and b) their own feeling of duty to the tribe. The leaders might even encourage it to the point of rewarding relationships where both of the mates have desirable qualities. I can definitely see the tribe rewarding such a coupling actually producing a child (kind of like the opposite of China).

You will have females unwilling to share, undoubtedly, but I would think you'd still have a fair amount who don't mind the practice.
Hell, you might find a strong female taking numerous mates herself in order to increase her own chances of conception.

So, no. I highly doubt that the majority of Troll women would find the practice oppressive, so long as the male is respectful and is able to handle such a situation properly. The difference between then and now, is that if the fellow steps out of line now, I'm willing to bet that the group of females would give him a decent beating or at least find out some way to ridicule him publicly. I'm even willing to bet that this might have happened in the past too, although likely less frequently.

oooh, very interesting subject....i'll have to get you later tho...work blah blah

I quite agree that it seems unrealistic to assume that the polygamic culture would have fallen out of favour.

I also agree that the females would have been likely to seize on their new found liberty to take more than one partner too. I'd go further and say that perhaps marriage was something that, if not seen as undesirable (as it might encourage people not to share), would at least be delayed.

With the Darkspear joining the Horde, could we also assume that, although some would find a partner from another race (fascination with the unusual and all that), most trolls would feel obliged to have at least one or two children with other Darkspears before settling down with somebody else?


Unfortunately, this means Vypra is a bit of a special snowflake in this regard. She doesn't want to have kids at all. Something that people should feel free to be outraged by should it ever come up in conversation

Having reread my post, I notice that I kind of left out a male perspective.
There would be some males unwilling to share as well. Jealous boyfriends and all that jazz.
On the flip side, the male reproductive instinct is to continue his own bloodline and in many cases, have as many 'conquests' as possible to show how great of a man he is.

The rest of my thoughtline is just parroting what I said, except instead of females it's males.

:O
But that means my lady is being spoilt by other men! They can do so but dey gunnah be lacking der bay ((baby*)) makers real fast mon!

torgadon wrote::O
But that means my lady is being spoilt by other men! They can do so but dey gunnah be lacking der bay makers real fast mon!

Good thing they grow back then

What are you little imature people saying???? I say bay makers :O
sometimes the maturity level of you folks make me facepalm.............. ;P

look ho is talking

rofl

btw ... there have bin talk about having 1 man having 2 wives ... 1 woman having 2 men and the same were al have the same sex ... but what about 1 woman having 1 man and 1 woman (or the other way around)? That should be ok to right

Hadunka wrote:but what about 1 woman having 1 man and 1 woman (or the other way around)? That should be ok to right

And we're back to Vypra again

In a lot of other WoW cultures it is implied that the women have their pick from a harem of men, so it works both ways.