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if 2 heads of houses are married - are the houses merge?


Itai Peer

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What happens when two heads of houses are getting married ( or their hairs ) ?
Are the houses merge into one house ?
Maybe the parent will give each house to each son/daughter ?  
In the sworn Shield we had such case , but i don't think either of the relevant houses was mentioned in the "present" ( house weber and house ... well i just remember Sir Useless  )

In Dorne it must be more common - one present example , is that Ynys Yornwood ( eldest daughter of the current lord )  , is married to Ryon Allyrion , heir to  his house

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I imagine they need special dispensation from the King or the Lord/Lady Paramount to do so as it is not either of their best interests if this happens

I'd also imagine that the House being swallowed up would fight against it as these Houses seem to cherish their names and histories so are not likely to be happy and sit around and let it happen. 

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1 hour ago, Itai Peer said:

What happens when two heads of houses are getting married ( or their hairs ) ?
Are the houses merge into one house ?
Maybe the parent will give each house to each son/daughter ?  
In the sworn Shield we had such case , but i don't think either of the relevant houses was mentioned in the "present" ( house weber and house ... well i just remember Sir Useless  )

In Dorne it must be more common - one present example , is that Ynys Yornwood ( eldest daughter of the current lord )  , is married to Ryon Allyrion , heir to  his house

GRRM said that Westeros "does not like" mergers of houses. The ruler prefers twenty weaker Houses than e.g. eight very strong ones.

If the heads/heirs marry then some sort of arrangement is made to keep the two Houses separate. No rules set in stone exists so the details would depend on circumstances.

Factors would be the prestige of the Houses, the number and sex of siblings, etc.

 

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1 hour ago, TMIFairy said:

GRRM said that Westeros "does not like" mergers of houses. The ruler prefers twenty weaker Houses than e.g. eight very strong ones.

If the heads/heirs marry then some sort of arrangement is made to keep the two Houses separate. No rules set in stone exists so the details would depend on circumstances.

Factors would be the prestige of the Houses, the number and sex of siblings, etc.

 

Could you link the SSM for that? 

It's been a matter I've been wondering about for some time and  I didn't know that GRRM adressed the issue. 

1 hour ago, Dofs said:

I would expect that someone would concede their inheritance to another heir (most likely a woman), or their children would inherit different Houses. Houses in Westeros don't merge.

Yeah I was speculating that it be like that. Either you have a solution were the eldest son (or in Dorne the eldest child) inherits one House and the second eldest the other house. Alternatively you have a scenario in which one of the spoueses gives up his or her inheritance to a sibling or the other person next in line. 

To the OP: Since most marriages in Westeros are arranged I guess that this scenario would only come up very rarely, because parents who know that mergers of houses are frowned upon might avoid marrying off their heirs to other heirs. 

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We have a fairly good example of what would happen should heirs marry in the betrothal of Arianne and Viserys. In order to be Viserys' wife Arianne would have to give up her claim to be Princess of Dorne.

I imagine it's usually the woman who has to give up her claim, but not always. Should the woman be from the more powerful house, then it would be the groom who would give up his right to succeed to his family's seat, and the children would likely take their mother's name so that her family's line would continue. That may be what happened with Maege Mormont whose children are all legitimate but carry the Mormont surname.

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1 hour ago, Queen of Procrastination said:

Could you link the SSM for that? 

It's been a matter I've been wondering about for some time and  I didn't know that GRRM adressed the issue.

Here you are, My Good Lady:

http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/Land_Ownership_and_Marriage_in_Westeros/

 

Quote

 

Q: I am under impression, that unlike in historical middle ages, the land estates in Westeros are neither splitted among several children, nor combined. Basically, the heir inherits all and if another title comes their way, it goes to a hetherto landless sibling. Am I right?

A: More or less. Holdings are seldom divided. Nor are they combined, as a rule, although one person could concievably hold more than one title. The other major factor is the current lord -- if one decided to do something unusual with his estates, that would carry weight. (Might also cause disputes, though)

 

The issue might be addressed somewhere else as well, but the above is the best I could find.

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49 minutes ago, Lady Blizzardborn said:

Given the patriarchal system and male heirs first rule in Westeros, it probably doesn't often happen that a woman is the heir, so they probably don't have to worry about it much.

On the other hand, (just to pick examples) if you are say, Lord Alric Oakheart of Old Oaks and you have two children, a son and an heir, Arven and a daughter Alenna, when you are fixing up your marriages for them, you would no doubt wish to find a suitable high status wife (a nice Florent or Rowan girl, i.e.the daughter of a neighboring lord)  for your heir and you'd want to make sure that your daughter ended up with something equally valuable, a lord or an heir, say one of the Fossoways. This way your grandchildren are all highly born and placed, and thus serves to keep your family enmeshed in the tightly packed network at the top of the feudal pyramid.

Suppose you manage to marry them both off but then your son dies without issue - the available heir of your body, your daughter, is now the Lady of New Barrell, wife of its Lord and mother to the Fossaway heirs.

Would the Tyrell overlords wish this merger of Fossaway and Oakheart to happen, or would they disapprove? Would Lady Alenna have to abdicate her position as heiress to Old Oaks, or would she be permitted to nominate one of her children to become the Oakheart heir?   As you say, it doesn't happen all that frequently, but then again, as we have seen in the aftermath of the Wot5K, after a war, you end up with loads of daughters and sisters in position of power, so it probably comes up mostly after a big messy war. 

It's not very clear in the books, but its lurking in the background that presumably the overlords have the right to approve and veto betrothal pacts among their vassals, and also can ratify the selection of an heir to avoid one family assembling a mega-estate through shrewd matchmaking. 

 

 

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3 hours ago, Daena the Defiant said:

On the other hand, (just to pick examples) if you are say, Lord Alric Oakheart of Old Oaks and you have two children, a son and an heir, Arven and a daughter Alenna, when you are fixing up your marriages for them, you would no doubt wish to find a suitable high status wife (a nice Florent or Rowan girl, i.e.the daughter of a neighboring lord)  for your heir and you'd want to make sure that your daughter ended up with something equally valuable, a lord or an heir, say one of the Fossoways. This way your grandchildren are all highly born and placed, and thus serves to keep your family enmeshed in the tightly packed network at the top of the feudal pyramid.

Suppose you manage to marry them both off but then your son dies without issue - the available heir of your body, your daughter, is now the Lady of New Barrell, wife of its Lord and mother to the Fossaway heirs.

Would the Tyrell overlords wish this merger of Fossaway and Oakheart to happen, or would they disapprove? Would Lady Alenna have to abdicate her position as heiress to Old Oaks, or would she be permitted to nominate one of her children to become the Oakheart heir?   As you say, it doesn't happen all that frequently, but then again, as we have seen in the aftermath of the Wot5K, after a war, you end up with loads of daughters and sisters in position of power, so it probably comes up mostly after a big messy war. 

It's not very clear in the books, but its lurking in the background that presumably the overlords have the right to approve and veto betrothal pacts among their vassals, and also can ratify the selection of an heir to avoid one family assembling a mega-estate through shrewd matchmaking. 

 

 

There is no guarantee that the daughter then becomes the heir though. If Lord Alric has a nephew named Philbert, he could be Oakheart heir. Particularly if it was understood when Alenna married the heir to Lord Fossoway that her children would be considered Fossoways, not Oakhearts.

However, assuming there is no nephew or other distant male relative, the most likely outcome is not a merger of the two houses, but Alenna's second or third son being named Oakheart heir and taking the Oakheart name when he goes to live at Old Oaks.

The Rosby inheritance may even give us a direct in-world example. GRRM hasn't yet told us who the ward is, but I'm on Team Olyvar Frey. His mother was a Rosby, and after what happened at the Twins, I don't think Oly would have any problem taking the Rosby surname.

That's an excellent point and quite frankly Aerys II, if he'd been sane enough, could have refused consent for the proposed Stark/Tully, Stark/Baratheon, and Tully/Lannister marriages. Generally the overlord's consent is a formality but not always. Occasionally there's a lord who has other plans, and says no.

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well,if the grandparents of oakheart are still alive, then they would rule and name one their daughter's, who is now a fossaway, sons as their heir. i think thats how some houses have managed to passed on when all the direct line is dead. wouldnt this situation be applicable concering harold harding? i think that his name,but isnt he teh heir to house arryn after robert dies? through his mother or something being a relative to jon arryn making him a nephew or something?

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14 hours ago, Lady Blizzardborn said:

That's an excellent point and quite frankly Aerys II, if he'd been sane enough, could have refused consent for the proposed Stark/Tully, Stark/Baratheon, and Tully/Lannister marriages. Generally the overlord's consent is a formality but not always. Occasionally there's a lord who has other plans, and says no.

The idea of a ban on inter-realms marriages between the Great Houses cropped up in a thread which had drifted into "improve Targaryen rule" territory.

I wonder if actually the Crown might have less say over marriages of the Great Houses than Great Houses have over those of their bannermen.

My explanation - dragons :)

At Conquest the Targs forced the ex-Royal - and now just Great - Houses to intermarry (I know of Arryn/Stark - were there other?) as to knit the Seven Kingdoms together. And later the Targs had no need to have a say over the marriages of Great Houses as they had dragons. So, no precedent set in the past as to the Crown having something to say over e.g. Starks marrying Martells.

After the dragons were gone the Targs did not have the power to impose such limitations on the Great Houses - Aegon Vth wished to work with said Great Houses - whereas most Targs were self-delusioned as to the might of the Crown and did not care.

Whereas the "local Kings" never had dragons and thus HAD the need for control over their bannermen's marriage alliances. 

This duality - "Starks/Arryns/Tyrells can, while Targs cannot" - may be likened to the "line item veto" in the USA - the POTUS does not have such a power while many State Governers have it.

Just a hypothesis :)

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20 hours ago, Red Tiger said:

Daeron II's wife, Mariah Martell, was heir to Sunspear. Maron became the lord of Sunspear without a fuss. Off course, we are talking about one of the parties being the royal house of Westeros.

In the time of this marriage , Daeron was not king or heir , only a cousin of the king.  It is strange that Mariah of the feminist Martell house gave up her claim for Sunspear for  another prince who are not certain to inhereit the throne.  

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What if it had been like this:

- the Dornish Heir gets a Targ Prince as trophy-hubby for consort

- Targs drop left and right and trophy-hubby unexpectedly becomes KIng

- Dornish Heir has to give up Sunspear and move to KL as hubby got a better paying job than she has

 

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Tywin wanted Tyrion to have Winterfell and not the Rock as another example.

Robert had KL Dragonstone and SE he could have kept all 3 but gave 2 to his brothers.

Logistics will play a part holding 2 castles/lands might sound like a good idea but even after the 7 kingdoms are united holding them could be a problem unless they shared a border.

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On ‎13‎/‎08‎/‎2017 at 3:32 PM, Itai Peer said:

What happens when two heads of houses are getting married ( or their hairs ) ?
Are the houses merge into one house ?
Maybe the parent will give each house to each son/daughter ?  
In the sworn Shield we had such case , but i don't think either of the relevant houses was mentioned in the "present" ( house weber and house ... well i just remember Sir Useless  )

In Dorne it must be more common - one present example , is that Ynys Yornwood ( eldest daughter of the current lord )  , is married to Ryon Allyrion , heir to  his house

 

Martin has based his inheritance  system on gavelkind.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavelkind

In short, eldest heir gets the most important title, second heir gets the other.

 

 

 

 

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11 hours ago, Itai Peer said:

In the time of this marriage , Daeron was not king or heir , only a cousin of the king.  It is strange that Mariah of the feminist Martell house gave up her claim for Sunspear for  another prince who are not certain to inhereit the throne.  

True, I forgot.

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