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[Vattic]

I'd like to see ethics relating to stuff like this randomly given to civs to add flavour.

Yes, that would be quite interesting.
Question: When you say 'randomly given' do you mean generated at worldgen or something?

It would have to be set at world gen, but then allowing views to shift with time might be interesting.

[utunnels]

Well I saw a male human vampire had a husband. Think about that maybe polygamy is not as strange at all.

So yeah, a switch in the raw or world gen settings would be nice.

Hehe, I think the biggest advantage is dorfs with multiple spouses need fewer bedrooms.

[Deboche]

Hehe, I think the biggest advantage is dorfs with multiple spouses need fewer bedrooms.

I doubt that because let's say you have a male with 2 wives and one of those wives has 3 husbands and so on. You still need a bed for each couple or the whole fortress would sleep in one bed

[utunnels]

Hmm, conjoint marriage can be complex.
The whole marriage group can be considered one family so maybe they need one house/room.

Maybe bedroom can have more than one bed, and the value of the bedroom should be divided by number of occupants.

[Urist Tilaturist]

Toady made dwarven culture. Toady made dwarves. These dwarves are Toady's dwarves, not anybody else's dwarves. If he says they accept homosexuality, then they accept homosexuality. If he says that they are monogamous like some birds are, they are monogamous like some birds are. If dwarves accepted free love I would not mod the raws to remove it. I only claim that their current way of life is not sexist and oppressive, as some have said.

A free love society could suit dwarves, but it could also not suit them. It does not suit some species. Dwarves may not even be that closely related to the great apes - their alcohol dependence and especially cave adaptation strongly suggest that they have fewer resemblances to chimpanzees and bonobos than we do. Sexual dimorphism in size may not be as great in humans and chimpanzees, but it still exists. Dwarves do not have it.

The problem is that deboche asserts that past human cultures were monogamous and any polygamy that occurred was "cheating", when this was often not the case. In many places having mistresses and concubines was totally acceptable for men; see the Bible, where King Solomon is described as having hundreds of wives and concubines and nobody thinks this is problematic. The sexist part was that women were not allowed to have the same. A free love society, as is present in the Mósuō people of China, is not sexist, but that is not how polygamy has usually been.

Patriarchal societies usually hold a double standard where women are expected to be monogamous and men are not as much. If both sexes are expected to be monogamous without a double standard, as is the case with dwarves now, that is not patriarchy. It may be sexually repressive, but it is just as sexually repressive to men as to women.

[Deboche]

Toady made dwarven culture. Toady made dwarves. These dwarves are Toady's dwarves, not anybody else's dwarves. If he says they accept homosexuality, then they accept homosexuality. If he says that they are monogamous like some birds are, they are monogamous like some birds are.

Indeed. What I am suggesting is that Toady changes it. And last I checked, dwarves aren't birds, wouldn't they be more likely to be like mammals, where polygamy is the norm?

Sexual dimorphism in size may not be as great in humans and chimpanzees, but it still exists. Dwarves do not have it.

Ok but that's related to polygamy for males only. Since there's no sexual dimorphism, both genders should be polygamous.

The problem is that deboche asserts that past human cultures were monogamous and any polygamy that occurred was "cheating", when this was often not the case. In many places having mistresses and concubines was totally acceptable for men; see the Bible, where King Solomon is described as having hundreds of wives and concubines and nobody thinks this is problematic. The sexist part was that women were not allowed to have the same. A free love society, as is present in the Mósuō people of China, is not sexist, but that is not how polygamy has usually been.

That's neither the problem nor did I make that claim. There are plenty of free love societies in the world that aren't sexist. My suggestion isn't that dwarves should have harems. We can talk about whether that should be one of the options when sexual behaviour gets defined for a civilization but if we do, harems of men with women being the "pack leaders" should also be included.

[Urist Tilaturist]

Anomalies exist in biology. For example, in most mammals the male is bigger, but in hyenas the female is bigger. Dwarves' monogamy could also be like this.

The problem is that females leading harems of males in any mammalian species is unlikely given the nature of reproduction, hence why it has never existed through a whole society in the way free love or male led harems have. Females cannot produce vast numbers of descendants in the way males can, so dominant females would not have far more offspring from having more lovers and so their genes would not be passed on more. There are sexually liberated societies where both females and males can have many lovers, like the Mósuō people, but there are none where harems of men are common because of the nature of mammalian reproduction; a female cannot produce more offspring with many lovers than she can with one, unlike a male with many lovers.

Dwarven sexuality should either be free love or monogamy, since they do not have gender double standards. Civilised humans should have patriarchal systems where many males have mistresses while women are expected to be monogamous. Elven queens can have harems of male officials (look at Catherine the Great for a real example of this), but this cannot exist all the way through their society for the reasons I have already given (their reproductive rates would be very low if only some women are being impregnated, and having multiple lovers does not boost females' fertility).

Essentially, dwarves should be gender neutral, humans patriarchal and elves matriarchal. However, because of the nature of mammalian reproduction, elves cannot have harems of men all through their society because that would severely damage their reproductive rates, so below the queens and governors their society should either be a matriarchal monogamy (which is possible, monogamy is not innately sexist) or free love model. Of these, only 2 are currently implemented.

[Deboche]

Actually there's a tribe in Africa where the woman sleeps with many men when she decides to have a child because they hold the belief that they will all be fathers. So she will sleep with a strong guy, a funny guy, a smart guy and so on so that the kid has all of those faculties. There's a biological advantage in this because even though the child only really gets one sperm from one father, there will be competition of sperm which will theoretically make for healthier offspring.

As for elves, it would make sense for them to not breed as much because they live forever.

So I'm assuming you're no longer opposed to polygamy.

[Urist Tilaturist]

What is the name of the tribe?

Elves live forever in theory, but in practice they die an awful lot.

I am not opposed to free love as a possibility for dwarves.

[Taffer]

...

[Urist Tilaturist]

For dwarves, I really do not care either way. Monogamy is fine for me, though I would like the possibility of remarriage and divorce. I am not opposed to free love either.

Humans are a different story. They should have sexual dimorphism, and the possibility of patriarchy, double standards, prejudice, rape, sex slavery and all the lovely things they are famous for. They should also accept the torture of animals. It would create ethics clashes with the dwarves, and generally make them nastier.

The elves' matriarchy could also be expanded a little, with males trying to gain favour with the queen and so on.

[vjmdhzgr]

For dwarves, I really do not care either way. Monogamy is fine for me, though I would like the possibility of remarriage and divorce. I am not opposed to free love either.

Humans are a different story. They should have sexual dimorphism, and the possibility of patriarchy, double standards, prejudice, rape, sex slavery and all the lovely things they are famous for. They should also accept the torture of animals. It would create ethics clashes with the dwarves, and generally make them nastier.

The elves' matriarchy could also be expanded a little, with males trying to gain favour with the queen and so on.

I really don't think any of this should be added. I think it might be kind of fun for societies to get Lind of funny randomly generated things like only people with broad noses can be priests, but rape, slavery, and double standards are terrible things and co don't want to see them ruining Dwarf Fortress. If polygamy were added in the way that's being suggested, I think it should really be toned down. Even in places with the highest amount of harems, it was just people in positions of power, not every single peasant.

[Urist Tilaturist]

Of course not everyone had harems, it would not work otherwise.

Sexual violence is terrible. So is all other violence. Dwarves, the main playable race, would not really have sexual violence, so having it in the game would be optional. Slavery is already in DF adventure mode; humans do it. Rape (of both sexes - no sexism here) should be the same. Humans are scummy.

[Taffer]

...

[Urist Tilaturist]

There is something called modding.