When did bastards happen?

[Graydon Hicks]

but i think the real fear of bastards, not the general distaste for them, came with the blackfyre rebellions. before that, bastards were just an embarrassment, stain on family honor, potential rival for inheritance, regardless of law, as bastards can inherent if they are legitimized and all the other claimants on the inheritance are dead. but with they rebellions, many began to see the bastards as dangerous. now they werent just potential rivals, they could easily be seen as actively removing their siblings from the path of inheritance, greatly increasing the perceived threat level of bastards to trueborn children.

[Jaak]

On 19.6.2017 at 4:11 PM, HaeSuse said:

Nah, think about it yourself. It's plain and clear and easily deduced. Bastards have existed, and have been scorned ever since.... Marriage was an institution.

Can you seriously dream up a world where people swear to be together for life, swear to raise their children together, swear to be honest, loyal and noble to each other.... but where Bastards are also welcome and accepted?

No. No wife would want that. No husband would want that. No child would want that. Bastards have existed and been viewed with scorn and derision, since marriage began.

Just look at the whole Mohammedan world.

Yes, they have marriage.

But the vows of a Mohammedan husband are worth little.  A Mohammedan husband can divorce his wife unilaterally, which a Christian husband cannot. A Mohammedan husband can legally marry additional legal wives over the objections of his wife and in-laws. And children of his concubines/slaves are also fully legitimate.

Nor is grabbing a teen boy before anyone else gets him any guarantee, because Islam does not have primogeniture. All sons are eligible.

The wives and. much more importantly, fathers-in-law and brethren-in-law of Mohammedan world must have cursed many sons-in-law for divorcing their daughters and sisters, or taking additional wives or concubines. Yet they have not managed to enforce lifelong monogamy on their allies.

[Daemon The Black Dragon]

The stigma of being a bastard was always there in Westeros imo. True a few bastards have risen high but the overall stigma is always there.   The stigma just got worse after Daemon Blackfyre too.

[HaeSuse]

1 hour ago, Jaak said:

Just look at the whole Mohammedan world.

Yes, they have marriage.

But the vows of a Mohammedan husband are worth little.  A Mohammedan husband can divorce his wife unilaterally, which a Christian husband cannot. A Mohammedan husband can legally marry additional legal wives over the objections of his wife and in-laws. And children of his concubines/slaves are also fully legitimate.

Nor is grabbing a teen boy before anyone else gets him any guarantee, because Islam does not have primogeniture. All sons are eligible.

The wives and. much more importantly, fathers-in-law and brethren-in-law of Mohammedan world must have cursed many sons-in-law for divorcing their daughters and sisters, or taking additional wives or concubines. Yet they have not managed to enforce lifelong monogamy on their allies.

 

You're mixing a lot of stuff up here. Untruths, to misnomers, to outright lies, as well as the fact that it applies to everything.

 

For one, a christian can divorce his wife unilaterally. And vice versa. 99.999% of the time, if you show up to court in America, the UK, mainland Europe, and say "I want a divorce from my spouse", you get it. It is the same in Arabic middle east. 

 

For two, if married to multiple women, all of those kids are legitimate. Those are not bastards. Same in all the various polygamist sects of Christianity, for that matter. Having multiple wives means having multiple sets of legitimate kids. Same in both religions.

 

For three, in polygamist religions/sects/cultures worldwide, throughout history, having children with a woman who was NOT married into the family, was considered bastardy, and those children did NOT sit in the inheritance line, did NOT sit at the family table, etc etc etc.

 

Monogamy is not required for bastardy. Islam is not required for polygamy. Islam does shun bastards. All other polygamists do as well.

[Dorian Martell's son]

On 6/16/2017 at 7:55 AM, Sea Dragon said:

I recently got the big World book and have been reading it and skimming some other parts. Wow. This book is like one of my text books. 

If you have not read the World book yet, it starts out with the ancient history and moves foreword. One thing I noticed is that there doesn't seem to be a lot of talk about bastards until later when the Targaryens rightfully conquer Westeros. 

When did the term and negative concept of bastards happen? 

Thanks eveyone for always answering my questions. 

Bastards became a thing when houses were established via a traditionally male line of succession. A man could bang whoever he wanted, but his house line would only continue from his trueborn children. Bastardy is far less of a thing in a more matriarchal society, like Dorne  

[Deepbollywood Motte]

5 hours ago, Dorian Martell's son said:

Bastards became a thing when houses were established via a traditionally male line of succession. A man could bang whoever he wanted, but his house line would only continue from his trueborn children. Bastardy is far less of a thing in a more matriarchal society, like Dorne  

This, let's not pull all the historical examples in this because that is gonna be a mess. Bastards are a established 'thing' before the blackfyre and yes, more after but when monogamy kicked in (when? we don't know but it seems pretty early) it was pretty out there, like I said before; The lady of a castle wouldn't like the child of some other women crawling around in here castle much (I bet you can imagine). I think some people try to negate the power of women married to lords. 

[Graydon Hicks]

it does seem that, while frowned on religiously, socially it was acceptable, practically expected, for lords to have bastards, only those lords were only supposed to go so far as making sure their illegitimate kids were provided for, but not care for them beyond that. like make that bastard entered into an acceptable apprenticeship somewhere, or this bastard gets squired off to a family the lord trusted, but other than that, never really interacted with.

[Jaak]

On 20.6.2017 at 9:41 PM, HaeSuse said:

For one, a christian can divorce his wife unilaterally. And vice versa. 99.999% of the time, if you show up to court in America, the UK, mainland Europe, and say "I want a divorce from my spouse", you get it.

Only since 19th...21th century.

Until 2004, you could show up in a court of Chile and be laughed off trying to ask for a divorce.

Malta is an island, so not "mainland Europe" either.

From 11th to 19th century, there was a big contrast between Christian world, where divorce was either outright impossible (Catholic side) or in principle allowed but extremely hard and rare (Protestant side), and Mohammedan world where divorce was easy and fairly common.

Though some parts of Christian world continued to tolerate concubines past 11th century. Like Scandinavia, Wales and Celtic Ireland.

Quote

I think some people try to negate the power of women married to lords.

Yes.

Like the lords.

And potential father-in-laws of lords who are already married.

And mothers of the lords, who´d like to remain the only one for her son and not yield that position to any single woman married to her son.

In some societies, they succeed. In others, they do not.

[Traverys]

 To keep it short, we could look and see the difference in attitudes towards bastards between the Northern culture (commonly attributed as First Men) and Andal culture (which brought over chivalry/knighthood and the Faith). The Northerners religiously instituted morals are very loose... Guest right and concepts of honor are the only two (informal) strong tenants of the religion in general. It's certainly not a reformed religion.

Though the wording in the books indicates that Starks were known to raise their bastards at home, we don't know if this can be generalized to the North in general. However, I tend to go ahead and assume the Starks aren't special in this regard. If anything, vassals would follow suit regarding their liege lord's behavior. It makes it harder to determine because we are only introduced to three Northern bastards throughout the series, if I recall correctly. Perhaps their definition of honor extends to providing for the fruits of their seed?

It's said in AWoIaF that the North and Dorne have more in common with each other than they do with the rest of Westeros. I would say that their attitude towards children born outside the bonds of matrimony is definitely one of those overlapping areas.

Shift to the invasion of the Andals. They bring with them a Faith of seven that has a large number of rules and regulations regarding the morals and daily life of its followers. It, obviously, resembles Christianity in its rules regarding sex(uality), monogamy, purity of body and mind, etc. I would argue this is where the stigma of bastardy plays into society, and especially the little phrases maester use to describe the nature of bastards (e.g., treacherous, wanton, etc.). It's an "evil begets evil" concept. Men succumb to their evil baser desire, and thus the fruits of these actions are evil as well. While it's not explored in the books, this also means that the Faith purports that man's instincts and natural inclinations are in conflict with what is best for their soul (i.e., original sin). Faith, piety, and prayer helps man overcome his baser self and ascend.

So, using a little deductive and inductive reasoning, I would say that the invasion of the Andals and the introduction of the Faith is what led to bastardy as we read it in the books.

If you wanted to know why there is bastardy to begin with I could go into that for you.

[Graydon Hicks]

20 minutes ago, Traverys said:

 To keep it short, we could look and see the difference in attitudes towards bastards between the Northern culture (commonly attributed as First Men) and Andal culture (which brought over chivalry/knighthood and the Faith). The Northerners religiously instituted morals are very loose... Guest right and concepts of honor are the only two (informal) strong tenants of the religion in general. It's certainly not a reformed religion.

Though the wording in the books indicates that Starks were known to raise their bastards at home, we don't know if this can be generalized to the North in general. However, I tend to go ahead and assume the Starks aren't special in this regard. If anything, vassals would follow suit regarding their liege lord's behavior. It makes it harder to determine because we are only introduced to three Northern bastards throughout the series, if I recall correctly. Perhaps their definition of honor extends to providing for the fruits of their seed?

It's said in AWoIaF that the North and Dorne have more in common with each other than they do with the rest of Westeros. I would say that their attitude towards children born outside the bonds of matrimony is definitely one of those overlapping areas.

Shift to the invasion of the Andals. They bring with them a Faith of seven that has a large number of rules and regulations regarding the morals and daily life of its followers. It, obviously, resembles Christianity in its rules regarding sex(uality), monogamy, purity of body and mind, etc. I would argue this is where the stigma of bastardy plays into society, and especially the little phrases maester use to describe the nature of bastards (e.g., treacherous, wanton, etc.). It's an "evil begets evil" concept. Men succumb to their evil baser desire, and thus the fruits of these actions are evil as well. While it's not explored in the books, this also means that the Faith purports that man's instincts and natural inclinations are in conflict with what is best for their soul (i.e., original sin). Faith, piety, and prayer helps man overcome his baser self and ascend.

So, using a little deductive and inductive reasoning, I would say that the invasion of the Andals and the introduction of the Faith is what led to bastardy as we read it in the books.

If you wanted to know why there is bastardy to begin with I could go into that for you.

i agree with all this. maybe in other martin westeros works he can get around to showing us more in that way of other bastards in the north, give us a better idea of their treatment. but in essence, it does certainly fit woth everything we have seen so far. i cant completely attest to how the majority of winterfell treated jon, but it seems that greatest derision comes from cat, a southern follower of the seven, and when he is at the wall, where we see the most of the mistreatment seems to be from thorne, another southern, so we can safely assume he is probably a follower of the seven, though considering the circumstances of both individuals, things do seem to be a little crowded with personal feelings. cat, because of the relationship between perceived blood relationship between jon and ned being thrown in her face by his mere presence in winterfell, and thorne just seems to be bitter at everything, by being sent to wall for being on the losing side of roberts rebellion.

[Julia H.]

Just to add some more data to the discussion: Tormund actually tells Jon Snow that there would be nothing wrong with fathering a bastard on Ygritte and that bastards can be just as fine kids as others. This statement makes me wonder whether bastardy is an existing concept in wildling society at all or if Tormund is simply using the expression as an essentially foreign concept because he knows what Jon is talking about but does not consider it relevant in their society. In any case, wildling society, where the idea of inheritance is very limited in comparison with the Seven Kingdoms, does not seem to stigmatize bastards. 

[Jaak]

On 20.7.2017 at 0:12 PM, Traverys said:

 To keep it short, we could look and see the difference in attitudes towards bastards between the Northern culture (commonly attributed as First Men) and Andal culture (which brought over chivalry/knighthood and the Faith). The Northerners religiously instituted morals are very loose... Guest right and concepts of honor are the only two (informal) strong tenants of the religion in general. It's certainly not a reformed religion.

Though the wording in the books indicates that Starks were known to raise their bastards at home, we don't know if this can be generalized to the North in general. However, I tend to go ahead and assume the Starks aren't special in this regard. If anything, vassals would follow suit regarding their liege lord's behavior. It makes it harder to determine because we are only introduced to three Northern bastards throughout the series, if I recall correctly. Perhaps their definition of honor extends to providing for the fruits of their seed?

It's said in AWoIaF that the North and Dorne have more in common with each other than they do with the rest of Westeros. I would say that their attitude towards children born outside the bonds of matrimony is definitely one of those overlapping areas.

Shift to the invasion of the Andals. They bring with them a Faith of seven that has a large number of rules and regulations regarding the morals and daily life of its followers.

A place where we do see a different attitude to marriage is Iron Islands.

An ironman can legally kidnap saltwives. While sons of saltwives are despised, they can inherit if the father has no sons - i. e. had Balon taken a saltwife, the sons of saltwife would be behind Theon even if older than Theon, but ahead of Asha or Euron.

Yet Iron Islands have bastards, too. A kidnapped greenland woman may be made a saltwife. A free poor ironwoman might like to be a saltwife of a rich lord, but she is not allowed to - if she does enter into a consensual relationship with a married ironman, her children are bastards, named Pyke (if the father was noble) and can never inherit.

[Sea Dragon]

On July 20, 2017 at 7:29 AM, Julia H. said:

Just to add some more data to the discussion: Tormund actually tells Jon Snow that there would be nothing wrong with fathering a bastard on Ygritte and that bastards can be just as fine kids as others. This statement makes me wonder whether bastardy is an existing concept in wildling society at all or if Tormund is simply using the expression as an essentially foreign concept because he knows what Jon is talking about but does not consider it relevant in their society. In any case, wildling society, where the idea of inheritance is very limited in comparison with the Seven Kingdoms, does not seem to stigmatize bastards. 

Wow, thank you. This is what I was interested in. I think you made a good point about Tormund maybe using language that he similar to the people south of the wall as a way to speak to them in their understanding. 

[Sea Dragon]

2 hours ago, Jaak said:

A place where we do see a different attitude to marriage is Iron Islands.

An ironman can legally kidnap saltwives. While sons of saltwives are despised, they can inherit if the father has no sons - i. e. had Balon taken a saltwife, the sons of saltwife would be behind Theon even if older than Theon, but ahead of Asha or Euron.

Yet Iron Islands have bastards, too. A kidnapped greenland woman may be made a saltwife. A free poor ironwoman might like to be a saltwife of a rich lord, but she is not allowed to - if she does enter into a consensual relationship with a married ironman, her children are bastards, named Pyke (if the father was noble) and can never inherit.

I read on this forum a few days ago that the Ironborn are maybe from somewhere really far west and maybe not part of the first men. I wonder if this could be where the different traditions come from? Thank you. 

[TMIFairy]

On 20.07.2017 at 11:12 AM, Traverys said:

Though the wording in the books indicates that Starks were known to raise their bastards at home, we don't know if this can be generalized to the North in general. However, I tend to go ahead and assume the Starks aren't special in this regard. If anything, vassals would follow suit regarding their liege lord's behavior. It makes it harder to determine because we are only introduced to three Northern bastards throughout the series, if I recall correctly. Perhaps their definition of honor extends to providing for the fruits of their seed?

 

If we have the same three bastards in mind, then only ONE was raised at his father's home.

Another - Larence - was sent away, albeit fostered with a very quite Noble House - the Glovers.

These two seem to be acknowledged i.e. of semi-noble status and given a surname.

The third - it is hazy whether he had been acknowledged and thus merited the surname Snow at all. Nevertheless Ramsey was kept away, with his mother (?) amongst the smallfolk.

There are examples from the "Andal" and "Sevener" South of acknowledged bastards living with father's family - the Freys at the Twins, the Connigton boy. The Valaryon bastard - Aurane Waters - seems to function quite close to his father's family. There is a girl in the Reach (apparently acknowldged, as she is a a Flowers) but brought up as a servant. IIRC there are some Reachman - Flowers - who are their father's (?) household knights.

So, it is a mixed bag. As tempting as it is I'm not sure if everything can be explained by First Men/Old Gods versus Andals/Seveners.

 

 

[Light a wight tonight]

On 6/16/2017 at 8:23 AM, Sea Dragon said:

Wow. Thank you. But I guess I still have a question as to if being a bastard was a negative thing rather than it just being a name or word to show they are different. 

Throughout the text it's made clear that bastards are looked down on by Westerosi society. Jon Snow is a good case in point; his presence at Winterfell is considered an insult by Catelyn and he's not allowed to eat with the Starks when they host Robert's retinue. He gets drunk and is feeling sorry for himself during the feast. 

[Damon_Tor]

On Invalid Date at 7:29 AM, Julia H. said:

Just to add some more data to the discussion: Tormund actually tells Jon Snow that there would be nothing wrong with fathering a bastard on Ygritte and that bastards can be just as fine kids as others. This statement makes me wonder whether bastardy is an existing concept in wildling society at all or if Tormund is simply using the expression as an essentially foreign concept because he knows what Jon is talking about but does not consider it relevant in their society. In any case, wildling society, where the idea of inheritance is very limited in comparison with the Seven Kingdoms, does not seem to stigmatize bastards. 

There would be some extra interest here if Tormund were the father of Maege Mormont's children, as some suspect.

[TMIFairy]

1 hour ago, Damon_Tor said:

There would be some extra interest here if Tormund were the father of Maege Mormont's children, as some suspect.

He licked her hoooooney!

Is Tormund old enough to be Dacy's pa? She was pushing 30 before getting offed at the RW.

Maybe Tory? Mundy? was the "bear" that Alysane Mormont found in the woods?

[Damon_Tor]

7 hours ago, TMIFairy said:

He licked her hoooooney!

Is Tormund old enough to be Dacy's pa? She was pushing 30 before getting offed at the RW.

We don't have an age for Tormund, but he's described as having grey hair and beard, so I don't see why not. They cast a very young actor for Tormund, so I think that mixes some people up a bit.

[Graydon Hicks]

On 7/21/2017 at 2:44 PM, TMIFairy said:

The Valaryon bastard - Aurane Waters

actually, the velaryons are valyrian, so bastardy in that culture might be different from the mainstream andal version. but i have noticed that kind of concept of keeping bastards close by for several familes. i discount the freys. no one really wants to marry that family, so it might that walder simply cant get rid of them, not that he wants to keep them around. but i think many nobles keep their bastards close by, if not in the house, in case something happens to kill off his trueborn heirs. at that point, the bastard can inherent. also, i have seen several bastards go on to be knights, which often helps to settle them into their own futures, without overly threatening the trueborns. and if the trueborn are raised with a friendly relationship with the bastard sibs, then they might have a better grasp of the bastard's loyalty to the family. jon and robb make good examples of that, especially if jon hadnt gone tot he wall. those bastards might see it as their job and honor to protect their trueborn sibs.