A newly married partner – in Sartar usually the newlywed wife – will enter the household or hearth of her husband. Most likely the newlywed husband will not be the head of the household, but a son, brother or nephew of the current head of the household.
Even if the marriage is a temporary marriage, the wife will bring a dowry to her new family. Her status in the household will probably depend on the extent of this dowry, but also on the skills she brings with her.
Still, the new household member will live among strangers she will have met onlyy a few times during the marriage negotiations between her birth clan and that of her new family in the advanced stages of negotiation. The initial negotiations often are on clan level, with the clan‘s traders acting as intermediaries (and often as diplomats, too). It is usual for the prospective couple to meet in person after initial cantact has been established – either partner or their households can refuse a tentative match, and the negotiators don‘t waste time on detailed arrangements without the consent of all involved parties.
Still, the birth clan of the bride (or externally marrying groom) will exert some social pressure on the potential bride to accept particularly advantageous deals.
The women of a clan keep track of family ties between the future couple. If there are strong religious elements in the marriage (basically with the bride and groom embodying their respective cults‘ deities), it is even possible that siblings (or more likely, half-siblings, from different clans) can marry, but usually the Orlanthi consider three generations as a safe distance between the future pair. Temporary religious marrigage may even occur within a clan. Bride and groom are considered to be their deity, even if they retain their clan membership.
Future partners of equally high standing may undergo a wedding contest, with two year marriages spent in either participant‘s home clan before deciding which clan the couple will live with. Any children born during that year will belong to the clan the couple resides with, so that full siblings may end up belonging to different clans or even tribes – a documented case are the children of Sartar and the Feathered Horse Queen. Their daughter Yoristina, born during the first year of their contest at Queen‘s Post, remained among the Grazers and inherited her mother‘s office, establishing the dynasty of Feathered Horse Queens, while their son Saronil who was born in Boldhome remained with his father.
A birth clan may allow a temporary marriage for love even if there is no significant benefit to such a match, which does open a backdoor to love marriage.
Children born to a couple before the marriage are legally part of the mother‘s clan, regardless whether the mother moves to her husband afterwards. There is no stigma to children born outside of the wedlock, and they usually receive a caring upbringing in their mother‘s birth household by their granparents aunts and uncles. When there is no such household left, the child may be given into fosterage, either with it parents, with another (usually more prestigious) household in the birth clan, or with a temple accepting such „orphans“.
It is possible for an Orlanthi woman to remain unmarried and still have a number of children. Having chidren is a measure of stts in itself for an Orlanthi woman, and may result in her attracting a husbnd to her household. Such a marriage may attract less dowry, but may also attract unusual skill sets or cult allegiances to a clan.
Idea for a (possibly short) Orlanthi campaign:
The characters are all newlyweds in a stead’s household. (This ought to be a fairly common situation given the custom to initiate the boys en bloc rather than individually, so that an entire age group in a household may come to age at the same time. Maybe add a few of the senior household members re-marrying, too.)
The new arrivals will have to establish their place and importance in their household, directing their marriage partner to intervene on their behalf with the esstablished household members. Animosities or agendas of their birth clans may cause problems or create scenario hooks. Especially so if a few of the marriages are the result of a peace settlement.
The new household should have a power struggle or some other fundamental internal difficulties, and possibly one or two dark secrets. (If the secrets are dark enough, this could be played with a Gloranthan adaptation of Call of Cthulhu…) Some dark secrets that get uncovered may concern a character’s birth clan rather than her new clan.
Additional drama can be created by household members returning after a longer absence – a mercenary or personal follower of the former tribal king returning to his birth household, a divorced woman returning, a rebel returning from temporary exile, a captive returning from slavery, or some NPC brides from standing feuds with a character’s birth clan thrown in by a malevolent narrator.