How magic changes Glorantha from Earth. Let's start with sex...

[JRE]

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

Which population densities are we comparing, though?

I am not a demography specialist, but counting hexes in the map with population numbers (a 8 km hex is 41.5 Km2) gives population densities for Sartar of roughly 15-20 inhabitants per square kilometer, while the global European numbers are around 1 in the bronze age, up to 2 in the Mediterranean and 6 in the urbanized Middle East. If we go to Esrolia or Peloria we get close to 50 inhabitants per square kilometer. And the terrain in Sartar certainly is not good for agriculture except in a few valleys. 

So it has to be magic. And iron age ships, barges, wagons, mills and pottery to allow all that trade. It may be an artifact of the short distances in Glorantha's maps, but it is what we have to work with.

[Joerg]

43 minutes ago, JRE said:

I am not a demography specialist, but counting hexes in the map with population numbers (a 8 km hex is 41.5 Km2) gives population densities for Sartar of roughly 15-20 inhabitants per square kilometer, while the global European numbers are around 1 in the bronze age, up to 2 in the Mediterranean and 6 in the urbanized Middle East. If we go to Esrolia or Peloria we get close to 50 inhabitants per square kilometer. And the terrain in Sartar certainly is not good for agriculture except in a few valleys. 

My previous go-to source for population densities in pre-industrial societies was the World chapter of RQ3 DeLuxe edition, describing the radius of land uses around a typical agricultural settlement in a mainly non-hostile environment. A 100 inhabitants hamlet would have a 2.5 km radius out into the agriculturally used wildlands (pig herding, lumber etc.), and you can place seven of these inside one standard 8km map hex. If you cut down on the wildlands, you can fit up to 30 such hamlets inside a hex (for places like the Nile delta or the Esrolian mesopotamia). Alternatively, you can string such hamlets along a river valley, with the wildlands slightly further away from the line of hamlets, covering the same 6 Km2 area (using your calculation above and a broad thumb).

This "every five km a hamlet" or in case of doubt some accumulation of inhabitants in bigger fortified villages seems to work out for the Roman Empire, Iron Age, and all the way past the Renaissance.

This doesn't take factors like soil exhaustion into account, but then I agree that fertility magic plus quite a bit of top-class soil makes such considerations go away.

 

Following your example, I have started to look for sources, and one of my first search results looks quite promising:

A DEMOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS OF LATE BRONZE AGE CANAAN: ANCIENT POPULATION ESTIMATES AND INSIGHTS THROUGH ARCHAEOLOGY

That phd thesis gives an insight into calculation methods for archaeological sites, and the great variability of the results. (The use of population density per hectare of settlement area leads to confusingly high numbers in the text...)

43 minutes ago, JRE said:

So it has to be magic. And iron age ships, barges, wagons, mills and pottery to allow all that trade. It may be an artifact of the short distances in Glorantha's maps, but it is what we have to work with.

Barges don't play much of a role between Furthest and Karse, as Jeff recently explained. And the merchant vessels aren't that different between Bronze Age Canaan and early Hanseatic League, much like farmers' housing hasn't made any revolutionary innovations between the Neolithic and the 18th century.

The wagons use bronze age technology, which was fairly advanced for the chariots, except that the horses were yoked rather than having a breast harness. Ox carts don't seem to have seen much in the way of technological upgrades after spoked wheels were introduced.

I don't see how Iron Age pottery would have been superior to that of the Bronze Age vessels found in the shipwrecks in Mediterranean. Are you thinking about standardized mass production? Looks to me like the Palaces on Crete already had something like that.

 

I still don't buy into your "population level is at a sustainable high" argument.

Comparing modern day Sartar to Sartar at the height of its wealth (Terasarin's reign, profiting from the Opening) to Sartar in 1621, I would assume a decline in population of 30k to 60k in Old Sartar. (And the carrying capacity of the land would have been even greater in the Second Age, already without the special draconic grains available from the Third Council creation of the Proximate Holy Realm, if you look at the city density in the Second Age maps recently provided by Jeff - at least as high as for Malkonwal, maybe approaching that of modern Esrolia.)

We don't have the post-1625 census yet, although I expect that to arrive with the Sartar campaign book(s). The Windstop and the expulsion of the Lunars will have reduced the 1621 numbers again.

As a consequence, I don't think that arable land is a limiter for population growth of Old Sartar since the conquest.

[Rodney Dangerduck]

6 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

casual (and consenting) sex with them will be seen as something fairly normal, and not a breach of the marriage vows

What is considered a breach of marriage vows in Glorantha?

1. Casual sex?  Apparently not.
2. Serious short term romances?  Well, just make it a "temporary marriage".  A.O.K.
3. Permanent long term polygamy / polyandry (Like Ernalda's husband protectors)?  Not a breach, it's very common.

[Eff]

11 minutes ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

What is considered a breach of marriage vows in Glorantha?

1. Casual sex?  Apparently not.
2. Serious short term romances?  Well, just make it a "temporary marriage".  A.O.K.
3. Permanent long term polygamy / polyandry (Like Ernalda's husband protectors)?  Not a breach, it's very common.

Well, when it comes to 3., Ernalda being polyandrous is at least consistent, but of course the question here is whether there's some kind of formalization of open/polyamorous relationships and just what the meaning of marriage is for Orlanthi, and for other cultures too, not that we know what their marriages are like. 

[FlamingCatOfDeath]

1 hour ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

What is considered a breach of marriage vows in Glorantha?

1. Casual sex?  Apparently not.
2. Serious short term romances?  Well, just make it a "temporary marriage".  A.O.K.
3. Permanent long term polygamy / polyandry (Like Ernalda's husband protectors)?  Not a breach, it's very common.

It’s not a question of what is “considered” a breach because the terms of the marriage explicitly lay out the conditions. In one marriage all of those things could be forbidden in the  marriage contract while in another all of that could be allowed.

”Because sexuality is so open, the marriage oath is significant. Marriage among the Orlanthi is a mutual bond between participants and their clans. The class of the marriage and its terms are carefully negotiated between the parties and their families. Since marriage is sanctified by divine oath, violating that oath is dangerous.” Page 81

Some marriage might have terms in it prohibiting side lovers, other don’t. If the contract said that one partner in a year marriage must train the other in spirit magic and they fail to do so that is a breach of the marriage contract.

[FlamingCatOfDeath]

8 hours ago, Joerg said:

Glorantha is a post-apocalyptic Bronze Age, too. Pre-apocalyptic Golden Age magic can be reconstructed or imitated, and even be re-established by means of the Proximate Holy Realm as built by Belintar and still lingering.

Do we have any official information on the special magics allowed by the PHR? It seems interested but I don’t know where to look to understand what it actually allowed for.

[Joerg]

55 minutes ago, FlamingCatOfDeath said:

Do we have any official information on the special magics allowed by the PHR? It seems interested but I don’t know where to look to understand what it actually allowed for.

All we have is examples. I mean, the term has been brought to awareness only recently in one of Jeff's Facebook posts, and a few follow-ups.

For the Dragon Pass regions, the PHR has been achieved twice - first by the pyramid scheme magic drain of the EWF Third Council, and second (more sustainably) by Belintar through his Masters of Luck And Death quests that kept adding to the holiness and helped maintain that nexus to the God World that made the City of Wonders so outstanding.

It is possible that the presence of the Pseudocosmic Egg in Dorastor created that kind of effect, too.

One result of the PHR being activated might be new or hybrid species. We have the Wyrms that apparently were a creation of the Second Council, the mixed ancestry of Gwalynkus the Good and his even more magical offspring by the Gold Wheel Dancer for Dorastor, and the EWF brought us the Stitched Zoo, the Tusk Riders (who may or may not be the result of the Remakers and their magic), we have Pavis and Ginkizzie as the results of cross-breeding, we have that couple that had the aging contest, etc.

Belintar's magic brought us magical places and artifacts, like the Fish Road with its termini, the rainbow bridges, or the Building Wall. And possibly the Sartar Magical Union.

[Nick Brooke]

1 hour ago, FlamingCatOfDeath said:

Do we have any official information on the special magics allowed by the PHR? It seems interested but I don’t know where to look to understand what it actually allowed for.

No, nothing. We know that, crudely speaking, it brought the Gods’ World closer to the Mortal World, but most examples are now a lost Golden Age. We can’t remember exactly what we lost. These things aren’t meant for us.

The most accessible, extant Proximate Holy Realm I can think of is Inner Glamour, where the Moon power surges into the Middle World, gods and goddesses walk the Earth, and Moonson’s idle fancies become flesh and marble.

[FlamingCatOfDeath]

1 minute ago, Nick Brooke said:

…most examples are now a lost Golden Age. We can’t remember exactly what we lost. These things aren’t meant for us.

Do people forget what was in it when it disappears or when they leave it? Also do written records of its contents and abilities get removed/censored when it disappears?

[Eff]

12 minutes ago, FlamingCatOfDeath said:

Do people forget what was in it when it disappears or when they leave it? Also do written records of its contents and abilities get removed/censored when it disappears?

Some options, if you wish to use this motif: 

-Everything is covered with nostalgia to the point of obscuring any reality that can be extracted- the summer days lasted forever, the winters were endless snowball fights and hot chocolate and all of that. 

-The survivors experience retrograde amnesia- they cannot explicitly remember what happened, but the things they did and learned are still implicitly present but just out of reach. 

-The reality is confined within the space of the survivors' heads- they cannot speak of it directly, and their tongue seizes up if they try, or they say something else instead. Their hands do not allow them to perform the secret rites that only existed in the golden age before the world fell etc. 

[Joerg]

9 minutes ago, FlamingCatOfDeath said:

Do people forget what was in it when it disappears or when they leave it? Also do written records of its contents and abilities get removed/censored when it disappears?

Some things become impossible when the overlap with Godtime goes away. Thinking of it becomes hard as the magical vocabulary you had all of a sudden is just a piece ot technobabble without any relation to the reality you are in.

It is a bit like one of those grand, world-changing ideas you have when sufficiently inebtriated or awakening from a dream that fall apart when you are faced with a harsher reality that nixes some of the basic assumptions for your wonderful experience.

Written records will have lost the context necessary to make sense of them. What used to be a concise treatise now reads like Joyce's Ulysses, or maybe just a bunch of onomatopoeia. "Calibrate the plasma flow!" "activate the flux compensator!" "Trickle-down economy"

[JRE]

Joerg, I do not think this is a place to argue demographics, though I find half a million people in LB Canaan a bit excessive if Egypt had roughly 3 million people. Biblical studies people have an agenda to "prove" the bible, after all. My population data is mainly from Johannes Müller From the Neolithic to the Iron Age – Demography and Social Agglomeration: the Development of Centralized Control

I do not understand the mention of Canaan ships, unless you refer to the Uluburun ship, as there is no other mention of archaeological remains. Most modern ship technology, from rudders to long distance volume trade appear in the Iron age, linked with the availability of iron tools, sawmills, and the simple impact of iron axes in logging. Increased trade is one of the clear benefits in the Mediterranean in the iron age. It is a matter of quantity, so we go from a luxury trade to making oil, salt, grain or wine profitable.

The pottery wheel and the round mill quern are also iron age technologies, as is dressed stone, available only with the development of stone saws. Even widespread wooden buildings appear in the iron age replacing the previous mud and daub buildings in Central Europe. 

Edited June 14, 2022 by JRE

[metcalph]

7 hours ago, FlamingCatOfDeath said:

Do we have any official information on the special magics allowed by the PHR? It seems interested but I don’t know where to look to understand what it actually allowed for.

Based on another system as well as the Battle of Night and Day - rune magic is more powerful.  But using it too much runs the risk of empowering your enemies as well or being sucked into the Gods World never to return.  So there will be a code (which "is more what you’d call ‘guidelines’ than actual rules") of how to behave without triggering these consequences.

[Darius West]

22 hours ago, JRE said:

Actually that is the whole point why I fully disagree with the idea that Glorantha is Bronze age, except in appearance. My thesis is that the presence of magic fully changes the dynamic, as we can see also with the population density in most of Glorantha, that are much higher than in Earth during modern times, not to mention the Bronze ages.

Based on those population densities we must assume that the rural population is very high.  Yes, magic can mitigate these requirements a little in terms of keeping urban populations supplied, but not unreasonably as the magic only protects the crop; it doesn't multiply it.

22 hours ago, JRE said:

And I insist the changes are good for a game world. Women are free to do other things besides having kids. No obsession with sex for procreation (except high class Yelmites, I suppose, but we need someone to mock), which also avoids most of our world's hang-ups with same sex couples and casual sex, or with people changing or assuming different genders. Just because most peoples are over the subsistence level, so the extra people are not really necessary thanks to fertility magic, and there is a very good chance that a pregnancy will give you a new adult (or two) in sixteen years.

You are denigrating motherhood, whether you accept the fact or not.  Do you seriously think that a society like Esrolia gets as large as it is because women would rather be filling other roles?  Motherhood is the social glue of Orlanthi society, and Ernaldan society too.  Raising a large family is useful for many reasons, and the legal institutions relating to marriage exist to protect mothers and children and their inheritance rights, as males are warriors and thus disposable.   This is not a society where most women want to travel or fight or spend their lives cooped up in a library or a workshop.  Motherhood has immense dignity, and each live birth is a personal hero quest that adds to the viability of her family, her clan, her tribe, and her state.  Ernalda is the epitome of this role, and you don't see the goddess eagerly running off to try her hand at killing broos, or learning calligraphy etc.

22 hours ago, JRE said:

Borders have moved very little in Dragon Pass in the last centuries. If we do not count the Lunar occupation, which is a recent event, Sartar has been a haven of peace for more than a century, so I do not see that low intensity orlanthi on orlanthi warfare in Dragon Pass. There are a few sharp wars with Tarsh, roughly once for generation, but I do not expect that affects most of the population, but the professional warrior class and martial magicians of both sides.

 We MUST count the border alterations caused by the Lunar occupation.  The entire focus of Orlanthi identity has been dedicated to fighting the Lunars and losing.  How can we not count that?  Also we cannot be entirely certain about when Moonson gave Ethilrist his land, and we know that the Amber fields and Forthanland only become recognized as Yelmalio territory in 1579.  The fall of Tarsh also saw the territory of that state subtract the land of the Exiles, the Bush range and Far Point from its previous holdings imsmc.

22 hours ago, JRE said:

But Dragon Pass is quite full, so anybody with big families is planning war gainst their neighbours. Which could be a thing in Sartar, if they had not just suffered the long winter. 

I strongly disagree with this assessment.  The pursuit of large families is a constant for every clan at all times, as children become the wealth and power of a family.  Furthermore, danger is a proven aphrodisiac and war and hardship drives population booms when you look at demographic evidence irl.

22 hours ago, JRE said:

As for Argrath, I would expect he will try to ritualize even his affairs, to extract all the power he can. So he will cast his partners as Orlanth's partners, and really love them. And then he will play at being Heler, and sow further afield. He will be (Storm) White Bull in Prax, and extend even further his influence by fathering little Wahas, or look for less known myths that foster the brotherhood with benefits between Urox and Orlanth...

 Personally I base my Argrath on Greg Stafford himself, and have always imagined him as Greg's character and reflecting Greg's personality if playing this very focused Orlanthi leader.  I see Argrath as highly intelligent and innovative, mercurial, and highly political.  Of course Argrath is also an illuminate, and so there is the temptation of power-hungry over-reach.  All of this would no-doubt permeate his use of sex (I employ the term "use of sex" very deliberately as I am sure he would see it as another tool).

That being said I think that your approach to Argrath works well JRE and I think agree with it.

Edited June 15, 2022 by Darius West

[Rodney Dangerduck]

10 minutes ago, Darius West said:

Yes, magic can mitigate these requirements a little in terms of keeping urban populations supplied, but not unreasonably as the magic only protects the crop; it doesn't multiply

I sometimes idly speculate on how Bless Crops compares to Haber–Bosch for crop yields.

[Shiningbrow]

13 hours ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

What is considered a breach of marriage vows in Glorantha?

1. Casual sex?  Apparently not.
2. Serious short term romances?  Well, just make it a "temporary marriage".  A.O.K.
3. Permanent long term polygamy / polyandry (Like Ernalda's husband protectors)?  Not a breach, it's very common.

As others have said - it depends!

Q: Who is the Orlanthi deity of monogamous marriage? (or even marriage, monogamous or not?)

Which of the Orlanthi gods even has Stasis as a rune? Obviously Lhankor Mhy. who prohibits marriages outside the cult (so, just make someone a Lay Member!)

If the people follow the ways of the gods (and in Glorantha, that makes perfect sense!), then the gods were very promiscuous. Is there any deity that doesn't have stories involving dalliances?

Now, compare them to the Yelmites, who are very stringent (prudish) about sex.

And then, to the western, Malkioni cultures.

And perhaps even to Kralorela.

The Orlanthi are the centre of this game setting. If you want to suggest that monogamous marriages are an important thing, then logically, you should also point out a culture in which this is different (or do you assume that all marriages everywhere should be monogamous?) Orlanthi are about freedom - "No-one can make you do anything". So, is it surprising that they don't follow general monogamous marriage ideas?

 

But, I'll also say this - I think the majority of marriages will be monogamous - as the majority of the people are simple farmers, herders and fishers, along with a few townsfolk who have their own business. For pragmatic reasons, they will generally be monogamous.

And, it should also be pointed out that while many may be able to have sex outside their marriages, and it would be accepted, that in no way means there won't be jealousy or repercussions.

 

Another question - how many marriages are arranged, or at least done for the sake of clan/tribe benefit, rather than for "love"?

[JRE]

1 hour ago, Darius West said:

I strongly disagree with this assessment. 

We will have to agree to disagree, as I just deleted a draft that was just a ping pong game of arguments, when clearly we have a quite different vision of orlanthi families, and the associated mortality that drives that same situation.

Though I punctually agree the events from 1621 onwards will mean lots of kids after 1626, which will be important in the final stages of the Hero War, as the lot of kids in 1602-1612 will fuel the coming war years and supply player characters. 

[JRE]

41 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

Q: Who is the Orlanthi deity of monogamous marriage? (or even marriage, monogamous or not?)

Obviously Orlanth and Ernalda, as marriages are an echo of theirs. Which means, echoing the RW debates, among the orlanthi, marriage is between an Orlanth proxy and an Ernalda proxy, but the genders and sexes of the proxies can vary. 

That is why a marriage is a sacrament, a mythically resonant event, so done seriously. The sources use bedwife or bedhusband for what I assume are stable lovers without marriage, though they are not fully consistent. 

41 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

 

Another question - how many marriages are arranged, or at least done for the sake of clan/tribe benefit, rather than for "love"?

Among "normal" people, some will be for love, but most will be arranged affairs, though if there is no compatibility they will not last. I think it is a frequest song or bard tale when someone marries, moves to another clan, and then falls in love and after some difficulties marries their love. I imagine  a brother or sister-in-law, which requires divorce and formally returning to your birth clan so now you are eligible marriage partners. Other times there is jealousy and anger and kinstrife, depending on the mood of the bard.

The exogamous nature of marriage makes it difficult for you to marry someone you know well or grew up with, but the nature of love means you usually fall for someone you know.

Exceptional people, as discussed with Argrath, may be able to marry for love but also marry for interest / magic / power.

 

Edited June 15, 2022 by JRE

[FlamingCatOfDeath]

53 minutes ago, JRE said:

1 hour ago, Shiningbrow said:

Who is the Orlanthi deity of monogamous marriage? (or even marriage, monogamous or not?)

Obviously Orlanth and Ernalda, as marriages are an echo of theirs. Which means, echoing the RW debates, among the orlanthi, marriage is between an Orlanth proxy and an Ernalda proxy, but the genders and sexes of the proxies can vary. 

I agree that they are the gods of marriage their marriage is certainly not monogamous, Ernalda has a dozen husbands. I actually think Lhankor Mhy is an interesting model for (not god of) monogamous marriages/love marriages (the technical term not marrying for love). His relationship with the Light of Knowledge does seem to fit the bill.

[Eff]

Given what we know about fertility festivals and the presumed near-universality of attendance at them, I think it's worth questioning whether monogamy in Sartar is abnormal. And then you would have to ask what the social functions of marriage are in this society. Or perhaps start making some up. 

[Nick Brooke]

You could always pop in to the Uleria Temple in Apple Lane, and ask the priestesses there.

[Kloster]

9 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

Another question - how many marriages are arranged, or at least done for the sake of clan/tribe benefit, rather than for "love"?

Probably the vast majority of them: the marriage is a contract between the clans, and none of them will accept something that does not bring something. That does not mean that love does not take a part, but the contract is the main point.

[Rodney Dangerduck]

2 hours ago, Kloster said:

Probably the vast majority of them: the marriage is a contract between the clans, and none of them will accept something that does not bring something. That does not mean that love does not take a part, but the contract is the main point.

This also means that the couple may find it hard to divorce, contrary to what many on this thread assume.

As I questioned earlier, and @Eff did just above, if "cheating" is commonly accepted, and divorce is easy, just what are the social (and legal) functions of marriage?

Edited June 15, 2022 by Rodney Dangerduck
Removed extra Eff link

[FlamingCatOfDeath]

2 hours ago, Kloster said:

Probably the vast majority of them: the marriage is a contract between the clans, and none of them will accept something that does not bring something. That does not mean that love does not take a part, but the contract is the main point.

There are too many adults for this to be true (if we don’t count strengthening existing relationships). The number of clans that are close enough to be useful in times of crisis is small. So you will end up with a bunch of marriages between the same clans producing “duplicate” marriages. So long as they don’t all get divorced it wouldn’t matter much if a couple of the marriages  end. This is ignoring the fact that the marriages of low status individuals would not be seen as sufficient to secure important relationships unless they where related to someone important. Tenet farmers and stick pickers marriages aren’t important to the Clan

Edited June 15, 2022 by FlamingCatOfDeath

[Eff]

31 minutes ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

This also means that the couple may find it hard to divorce, contrary to what many on this thread assume.

As I questioned earlier, and @Eff did just above, if "cheating" is commonly accepted, and divorce is easy, @Effwhat are the social (and legal) functions of marriage.

sorry, can't delete the second eff reference...

Yeah, and let's break this down a little bit further- what is the nature of the bond between clans formed by marriage? Does it form a bridge of kinship by- ah, damn it, I need to get jargony, because we have two separate marriage types that have completely different locality terms. 

So, jargon time for a moment here. The sociological/anthropological term for "where newly married couples live" is "locality". There are essentially five common forms of locality recognized, though the language assumes heterosexual marriages. There's patrilocal/virilocal residence- the new couple lives with the husband's family. There's matrilocal/uxorilocal residence- the new couple lives with the wife's family. There's ambilocal residence- the new couple is able to choose where to live. There's avunculocal residence- the new couple lives with the eldest brother of the husband's mother in his household and with his family. And then there's neolocal residence, which is what's common for most people in wealthy countries today, where the new couple establishes their own household.

Within the King of Sartar seven-part marriage system, there are two basic monogamous forms- the standard marriage is a patrilocal one, and the Esrolian marriage is a matrilocal one, or at least on the level of clan residency. RQG states that Sartar in 1625 has a system of ambilocal residence where the couple resides with the clan of the higher status partner. I don't actually know what "higher status" means there and I doubt it's workable if it's treated as a finely gradated difference based on bank accounts. 

Greg Stafford's vision of Glorantha in 2010 was that gay marriage was accepted and common, and that it was not mediated by different gender roles or physical sexual characteristics. Warriors could marry warriors and caregivers could marry caregivers. This obviously throws any firm statements from King of Sartar out of the window, because there's a more fundamental question to ask here- in a same-gender marriage, who's the husband and who's the wife, legally and customarily speaking for the purposes of the standard marriage and the Esrolian marriage? 

Throw a pin in all of those questions for a moment. 

So to go back to the beginning here, if we understand that marriage binds two clans together via creating closeness of kinship, which is how the triaty tribe works in King of Sartar, and those still exist, then we have a social function of marriage implicit in all this. Assuming a unitary system of locality, clan A of the triaty only marries into clan B, clan B into clan C, and clan C into clan A. Children of clan A are consanguine with clan A through one parent and clan C with the other, B with B and A, and C with B and C. So one can perpetually avoid (socially defined) incest while reproducing the social arrangement. 

Now, in works like King of Sartar, violence between kin is deeply taboo and socially unacceptable. Marriages create kinship relations, and so marriages provide a means of suppressing violence as an option- by making two people kin and thus family, there is a strong pressure on them to resolve their differences peaceably and a strong justification for overwhelming retribution if they refuse peace. 

This is fairly similar to how, for example, Anishnaabe clan/doodemag relationships worked in the period of European contact (and before). Anishnaabe marital traditions were patrilocal, doodemag were exogamous and all consanguine, so young women would be sent to other doodemag for marriage and acted as a kind of political pawn, reinforcing the kinship and social bonds of political and social identities like Ojibwe or Odawa and also the collective Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawotami/Council of Three Fires, and also marrying outward from the core identity into more distant Anishnaabe groups and people from other ethnic groups and forming diplomatic bonds. 

And it is also worth noting that Europeans making contact with these groups frequently reported that they were offered the chance to have sex with women within the community. It is not hard to theorize that if these reports represent a kind of reality, this was a kind of social relief valve to counter the demands placed on young women in their role as tokens of political exchange- they also get a very high degree of sexual independence, because marriage is not primarily about sex or childrearing. 

All of which is to say, there are social circumstances in which the peculiar aspects of Sartarite sexual mores are, if not replicated, at least visible through a mirror, darkly. But they are primarily ones in which there is a tension between desire and love on the one hand and social necessity on the other. We can imagine that because there's explicitly patrilocal and matrilocal systems at work here, that these tensions exist for people of all genders, too, and thus that these sexual mores are not quite as gendered as Anishnaabeg ones perhaps were in the 18th century CE, (or perhaps fewer Frenchmen were willing to talk about their experiences with Anishnaabe men, etc.) 

These are not quite what most people seem to imagine, though, which is a kind of highly libertine system where the formal constraints on people don't really exist and most marriages are primarily driven by desires, by love, or by childrearing concerns. I'm not sure if there's a way or a need to reconcile the visions, either.