Honor/Hamish/Emily

cthia wrote:Tlb also says the notion is of a minority. Dunno where he gets his stats on that. I'll assume he polled everyone.

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:Tlb also says the notion is of a minority. Dunno where he gets his stats on that. I'll assume he polled everyone.

That was a joke, since we are free to make them in this thread.

cthia wrote:Tlb also says the notion is of a minority. Dunno where he gets his stats on that. I'll assume he polled everyone.

tlb wrote:That was a joke, since we are free to make them in this thread.

cthia wrote:Another immature retort? Since we are free to make jokes in all threads???

tlb wrote:

Star Knight wrote:Yeah, so how does any of this factor in with her not rolling pods again?

Apparently she was an idiot or on crack. There is a minority opinion that she was off the command deck banging, but that view had been depreciated.

cthia wrote:Being disrespectful to the author, to the characters, and to forumites is quite different from being a prude, or from being immature.

cthia wrote:Wasn't it you who posted that the notion has been a part of the forum for quite some time? It isn't my notion, though I found it amusing, and funny, especially since it mirrored the same sentiment from one of my friends about Pavel Young's excuse for being lax in the Basilisk System.

To be clear, I'm only saying that I can understand why someone might think that that's what was happening offscreen. Perhaps even prior to Kuzak receiving the Case Zulu. Prior enough to have caused her mind to be groggy from the excessive banging of her brain against the bulkheads.

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:Wasn't it you who posted that the notion has been a part of the forum for quite some time? It isn't my notion, though I found it amusing, and funny, especially since it mirrored the same sentiment from one of my friends about Pavel Young's excuse for being lax in the Basilisk System.

To be clear, I'm only saying that I can understand why someone might think that that's what was happening offscreen. Perhaps even prior to Kuzak receiving the Case Zulu. Prior enough to have caused her mind to be groggy from the excessive banging of her brain against the bulkheads.

If it was not your opinion that Kuzak was off the command deck during a critical period, they why did you take umbrage at my jesting that it was a minority view? You seemed quite sensitive to the notion that I might not have taken a poll of the forum.

I was merely stating something that I consider ridiculous and you responded as though you did not think it was a joke. I could understand if you did not think it was funny.

tlb wrote:

TFLYTSNBN wrote: It seems that I have stirred up a Shit Storm Rising with my joke about Admiral Kuzac. Given the context of this thread, I don't think that a somewhat juvenile jest about the moral character of another woman that Hammish had engaged in an extramarital affair with would be considered offensive. The difference between Kuzac and Honor is that Honor refrained from consumated the emotional bond that had unexpectedly developed with Hammish until Emily granted her blessing while Kuzak seems to have developed a far less profound affection while covertly comforting him with sex.

As for the entire debate about polygamy, I find it amazing that people find the idea offensive. Polygamy is a very, very common institution throughout history. While it is a feature of economically stratified, patriarchial societies (the rich guys get multiple wives while the poor guys get an occasional tryst with a prostitute), it is also an adaptation to differential mortality rates. Women have better immune systems then men so pandemics will kill off more men than woman. Polygamy maximizes the reproductive capacity of the society to recover.

By odd coincidence, one of my favorite movies was on TV, Anna and the King with Jody Foster. They actually got an Asian actor to play the king although he is from China rather than Siam. (I can't recall the modern name for the country.). A major plot element in the movie is the newest wife wanting to be with the man she loves rather than the king. It is gut wrenching when the British teacher realizes that the King was intending to pardon the lovers and release his wife from the marriage, but her public meddling compels their executions. The movie ends with the King and the British teacher realizing that it is only her inability to accept polygamy that prevents them from being together.

I view Manticore's moral standards as similar to may be modern America or 1980s Europe. (You Eurotrash are actually morphing into geriatric prudes as you take that plunge into demographic oblivion.). Premarital sex is not considered immoral. Promiscuity seems to be acceptable (Admiral Henke). I get the impression that homosexuality and gay marriage are accepted. People being people, I would expect that infidelity within marriage is not at all uncommon although socially unacceptable. I expect that even a few Grayson Steadholders were not the biological offspring of their putative fathers.

Given these realities, I am somewhat amazed that polygamous marriage would not be an accepted alternative on Manticore much less cause for political scandal. While Emily's situation is tragic, I am not at all surprised that she is willing to accept a sister wife into her marriage.

The country formerly known as Siam has been called the Kingdom of Thailand since about 1939. I do not remember if there is something disparaging about the former name, but the change was made in a period of anti-Chinese feeling.

The main problem with the joke is that it turns a "friends with benefits" situation into describing the woman as a slag, who would have sex with multiple men at the same time. It should have been posted in the humor thread. I do find your jokes juvenile, but usually do not complain about them; this one just happened to be a useful cudgel in a different argument.

I think you are wrong about Manticore's social standards in that as far as we can tell from the text, polygamy is very acceptable there; the church has long established procedures for such a marriage. The scandal in the book was the suggestion that Honor and Hamish were disrespecting Emily by cheating on her, a woman that had almost saintly status in that society; particularly when Hamish and Emily had written monogamy into their vows (another sign that polygamy was accepted). The scandal about polygamy itself is due to the personal feelings of some members of this forum.