Gender relations in Westeros

[Lord Varys]

8 hours ago, Nagini's Neville said:

I feel like it depends on the father/brother and the situation, if she can refuse. If it's wartime for example and allegiances need to be made... just think about Arya, she would have had to marry a Frey, whether she wanted to or not. I Also can't imagine Robb giving Sansa a lot of choice, if he got her back, about marrying Willas.

The difference would be that girls and women can refuse and suffer the consequences - which might be severe but which do usually not result in their torture and cruel murder. Which is what would have happened to Jon had he refused to fuck Ygritte.

8 hours ago, Nagini's Neville said:

There are numerous examples that show, that women did not really have a choice : Lyanna, Cersei, Lysa, we also don't know what would have happened, if Cat didn't have wanted to do her duty. I think the pressure was so high for all of these ladys, that they didn't really have a choice.

I'd agree with that in principle - but there is still a difference between parents and family preparing/grooming/training and to accept an arranged marriage and eventually being forced to marry a man they might not like (and the illusion of free will that comes with that) and the Jon scenario where somebody is coerced into sex with an implicit (and even somewhat explicit) death threat.

Even Daenerys understands that she will have to marry a man of her brother's choosing. She knows she has to marry, does not question that (neither do Arianne, Cersei, any noblewoman we meet) but she sure as hell does not want to marry Drogo.

8 hours ago, Nagini's Neville said:

But consent is kind of a very new concept and I think GRRM tries to reflects that in most of his "love stories", that's why most of them feel so of for me or yeah... because the lovers are siblings or whatever...

Well, Jaehaerys/Alysanne, Jaehaerys/Shaera, Aegon/Rhaenys, Jaime/Cersei, Baelon/Alyssa are all loving incest couples. That kind of thing does work - even Aegon/Rhaena were working and caring partnership despite the fact that Rhaena was not exactly into men.

8 hours ago, R2D said:

Cersei told Sansa she had no choice to marry Tyrion, I'm sure if Sansa said no she would be forced to anyway.

That could be ... or Cersei just said that to cow Sansa into not making a scene. Because it seems clear to me that such a public rejection of Tyrion could have had consequences. If marriage wouldn't involve the word of the bride then they could do away with that kind of ceremony entirely.

8 hours ago, R2D said:

The lack of spinsters in ASOIAF seems to imply women can't really remain unmarried.

It is uncommon but it definitely happens. There are quite a few Hightower spinsters not to mention women like Asha, Brienne, Arianne, Jeyne Arryn (who never married), etc. It would be expected that you marry as a highborn woman, but there are ways around that. And one assumes that less fortunate women (i.e. ugly/crippled women from impoverished or insignificant houses would have much more trouble making matches for their daughters than the elite has.

8 hours ago, R2D said:

Shiera Seastar as far as I know didn't have her father making any betrothals for her - it was other men who proposed to her, so she was free to refuse them. She was also a bastard so there was no pressure to marry for her.

But Shiera was the most beautiful woman of her age, and a legitimized bastard, so she was effectively a Targaryen princess. Her father couldn't have forced her to marry her even if he wanted to since he died a couple of years after her birth. However, one assumes Daeron II could have pushed her to marry, and Aerys I after his father, considering that they were the heads of House Targaryen at the time.

I meant Queen Shaera above, the sister-wife of Jaehaerys II who was originally betrothed to Luthor Tyrell but decided to wed her brother Jaehaerys instead.

8 hours ago, R2D said:

As for Arianne, wasn't that because Doran was saving her for Viserys and didn't want to get her a suitable partner? So he chooses old men that he knows she will reject and whom he  allows her to reject.

Yeah, but she has the right to refuse - could be that this is the Dornish situation where women do have more rights. But then, Oberyn should be married, too, yet apparently he got around that somehow.

8 hours ago, R2D said:

If Tywin pressed the issue, we don't know what would have happened. Cersei was greatly upset so she seems to think it's a real possibility she would be married off.

We see how Cersei could have dealt with her father in FaB when the Queen Regent Alyssa Velaryon dismisses her own lord husband, Rogar Baratheon, as Hand of the King. Cersei was the one with the legal power - she could and should have fought back. That she did not is part of the fact that essentially all of Tywin's children (and other family) are under his thumb. But that's a psychological issue. If push had come to shove Tywin would have had to stage a coup to seize power in KL.

8 hours ago, R2D said:

Still, that is just an assumption, and does not mean Ygritte was working with Mance to enlist Jon into the wildlings.

We don't know - all I'm saying is that it would be very odd if Mance didn't realized what was going on. I mean, given the scenario it would also be odd if he didn't have people shadow Jon day and night from the moment he joined them, meaning he may have known that Ygritte had lied.

But it is in his best interest to corrupt Jon further because he decided that he wanted to keep the boy. The idea would be to give Jon more and more incentives to stay with them for good - that would be the best way to prevent him from ever betraying them.

8 hours ago, R2D said:

The difference is Ygritte thinks Jon would enjoy it because he "stole" her. Drogo and Robert don't think that.

Drogo must know he is hurting Daenerys. Robert, well, he apparently was usually drunk when he and Cersei had sex - and if we allow Ygritte some weirdo cultural reason to get away with rape then Robert certainly could argue that being the manly man he is Cersei must enjoy what he is doing ... even more so since Cersei apparently was the one pleasuring him most of the time they had sex, anyway, considering she usually successful prevented him from having entering her vagina.

How Ygritte could be thick enough to not understand that Jon was just a green boy who couldn't/did not want to kill a woman is pretty much beyond me. I give her the benefit of the doubt there and assume she actually used the 'stealing routine' there as means to push him into a relationship. Jon never so much as sends her mixed signals - he spares her life, but he never flirts with her later on, never searches her out, never wants to spend time with her. Instead, she is the one constantly hitting on him, harassing him when he wants to sleep alone, etc.

Ygritte is naive in some ways - but she is a couple of years older than Jon, an actual woman who did have both romantic and sexual relationships before. She knows how this goes, and she uses her experience as an advantage to get what she wants.

8 hours ago, R2D said:

And both of them were not willing to abandon their way of life for each other. It's a flawed relationship, I'll agree to that.

Well, Jon never wanted to hurt Ygritte ever ... but Ygritte showed up at Castle Black and killed Jon's brothers. She could have walked away ... or she could have stayed out of the fighting. Instead she fought there and killed and died. That shows where her true loyalty lay.

Jon I think would very well have tried to compromise, to find a way to keep Ygritte with him at the Wall. He may even have run away with her if she had asked him ... especially after they had warned/saved the Watch from the wildlings. But Ygritte's clear agenda until her death was the destruction of the Watch and the destruction of the Wall itself. She makes it very clear that she hates that thing.

As for the whole breats thing:

I think this whole thing is more than just the common male sexualized view - George really seems to have a thing for breasts and nipples, something I don't really share. For what it's worth from a male perspective I'd be not uninterested to know how the legs, asses, waists, and, you know, faces of certain characters looked in detail, but there is little to be had in this regard, in part likely due to George's overall prose style (which really doesn't give a lot of descriptions and the like).

But one has to keep in mind that he is really starting to experiment with a male-on-male view, too. With Jon Connington we have a gay POV, Daemon II Blackfyre also sexualized male bodies in TMK, and that trend might continue.

Still, this doesn't help with female POVs acting and viewing themselves and each other in weird way.

[Lord Varys]

5 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

I'm going on the assumption that there was no patriarchy prior to the Andals. The wildlings, who are of First Men descent, don't seem to abide by a patriarchy. The fathers don't decide who their daughters marry. The daughters decide. If they don't like the man that "stole" them, they slit their husband's throat. I'm theorizing that the north adopted Andal ways after the wildlings were imprisoned behind the Wall, and Winterfell was actually stolen away by a bastard from it's rightful heir who was probably a woman. This is being echoed by Jon Snow and Sansa.

Unfortunately there is not the slightest hint that this kind of thing might be true. The First Men and the wildlings also have a patriarchal system, too (the Starks were never conquered by the Andals yet there was no Queen Regnant in the North, ever! - the sole difference with the wildlings is that their patriarchy is somewhat more like ours. Women do get a seat at the table if they really excel and are better than their male rivals - but the table still belongs to the men.

There were six Kings-beyond-the-Wall ... but never a queen.

And, frankly, the whole stealing thing is the worst part of wildling culture. The woman does not choose. She is literally the property of her family and can and has to be stolen. And it is quite clear that, like with Ironborn culture, a raider stealing a woman from a village he burns down can and does do to his captive women whatever the hell he wants. That doesn't mean there aren't nice guy variations of the stealing thing in peace time and between families who are friends and allies.

Ygritte shows how bankrupt she and her own culture are when she says that a woman can murder her husband - of course she can, but she shouldn't have to, no? And of course the kneeler women also can (and occasionally do) murder their husbands. Yet murder isn't permissable in either society, meaning a woman actually killing her husband is not likely going to get away with that.

Imagine you had stolen me and I, unwilling to be your wife, ended up slitting your throat. What do you think my other wives, children, siblings, kin, and friends will do to you now? People who loved, respected, and liked me.

The choice Ygritte puts forth is basically a non-choice. You can only make that choice if you are willing and capable of murder and can avoid the consequences that come with murder. An elite warrior woman like Ygritte might be able to do that (although she just talks about it, she never did it as far as we know) but a woman dragged into a foreign land where she has never been before wouldn't exactly be in the position to kill her husband and then go to a safe place where his kin would not find her to take their revenge.

And if we look at the women in high positions in the wildlings and the clansmen in the Mountains of the Moon then you really have to be very tough to get there. Harma Dogshead is the psychopath/true steel in her family - her brother is not. That's why she is wearing the pants. Chella is a very cruel woman collecting ears ... indicating she fought for a place at the table of the boys.

This is not an egalitarian society, more a society where mannish, mucho women are tolerated in male sphere. There is no indication you are getting a voice at, say, Mance's war council if you are as timid a girl as Gilly.

And Dalla and Val really hammer home that fact. They are basically eye candy, women who rose to high position because they look great. That Dalla also happens to be wise and all is great, but she is the chosen companion of the big guy, that's something she got because of her looks not because she is just smart.

And overall - the religion aside, there seem to be no real difference between First Men and Andal culture. In fact, it actually might be that the Faith is overly less misogyinistic than the First Men considering they did away with First Men polygamy (which was practiced by some First Men kings and is still practiced beyond the Wall), had at least one queen regnant in their kingdoms (in the Reach), and actually have three female deities/aspects of the one deity to worship - the Mother, the Maiden, and the Crone (and the latter is really an influential/wise figure). There is no High Septa, of course, but there are septas who are female priests, not just nuns, and there are septas and septons in the Most Devout, the ruling council of the Faith, not just septons.

It seems there were also powerful female priests and wise women among the First Men (think of the woman Bran sees conducting the blood sacrifice to the weirwood) but apparently they were not powerful enough to make some female Starks Ruling Ladies or Queens of Winter ... which definitely puts their power into perspective.

Chances that some women might end up in positions of power at the end of the series is certainly not unlikely. However, there is not going to be a system change. Even if we had a Queen Regnant in the end and half the important lords were all women then nothing indicates at this point that this would lead to even a change of established succession laws like switching from male primogeniture to equal primogeniture - although I'd like that).

[cyberdirectorfreedom]

14 hours ago, Nagini's Neville said:

Just one example "Her small breasts moved freely beneath a painted Dothraki vest," A Clash of Kings  

This is just ridiculous - I'm sorry. Maybe there are some women, who are hyper aware of their own bodies like that, but personally I have never in my life thought something so stupid like that nor do I sexualize myself like that,

This isn't a thought, though, right? It's narration. The narration is usually done differently between characters (Sansa's have a different feeling from, say, Jaime's) but it's not directly from their perspective. So I don't really think it's any reflection on what she's thinking, it's just describing what she looks like. Though, of course, the implication there might be that it's more about what GRRM is thinking...

However, I have to ask: is that even a sexualised statement? Does the mere mention of breasts create an air of sexuality? Maybe it's just me, but that quote only brings to mind a picture of a small-ish girl wearing a vest. The mention of her small breasts serves to get a better idea of what she looks like in a vest. Not for a moment am I picturing her naked breasts, and even more I'm not picturing them in any sexual manner.

Contrast that with, say, the description of Arianne's huge dark nipples, which is intentionally erotic considering it's from the viewpoint of a repressed horn-dog currently being aroused. It's different.

Anyway, as to what others are saying:

I think it wrong to say that just because the percentage of a certain group of people dying from x don't match statistics, that means it is unrealistic. It's statistically unlikely for heads to be the result of a coin-flip six times in a row, but it's certainly not impossible. A rash of deaths during childbirth (within a select group, in this case the nobility) is no more unrealistic than an extended period without them. It happens. We don't have information about the vast majority of expectant mothers; to take the number of a small group and extrapolating that to the entire population will never be entirely accurate. Could GRRM have written different deaths for some of these people? Sure, but that doesn't mean it's unrealistic, and I don't think it necessarily means it's sexist.

I also think it's somewhat worth noting that all of the men in arranged marriages are also raped. For instance, Ned was equally unwilling to bed Catelyn as she was to bed him (which is to say, "willing" but in the way that it's their duty, and they want to do their duty). Jon Arryn probably wanted Lysa as little as she wanted him, it was Hoster Tully who forced the marriage. The vast, vast majority of arranged marriages would be like this, too; two people who are forced to make do. Unfair to call either one a rapist, I'd say.

Also worth noting is that the rules are completely different for commoners and nobility. The vast majority of what we see is the nobility, of course, considering the POV structure. The little we see of commoners seems to give women more freedoms:

Regarding power structure in marriages, we have the example of the innkeeper Sharna, met by Arya and co. and by Jaime and co. Sharna clearly has all the power in the relationship, to the extent that her husband and the boy they took in are only named 'Husband' and 'Boy'. Of course, this is also a clearly unhealthy relationship. However, one would assume that there are many such relationships, including such with a more equal power structure. The nobility is always scheming for more power, and their sons and daughters are expected to do the same, and are used for such measures. The common folk rarely have such political marriages: unless there's a particularly attractive daughter, or a particularly militarily capable son, most common people marry other common people. Without a political edge, it seems likely enough that most parents (though probably not all) would allow their children the opportunity to choose their own spouse. With nothing to gain and nothing to lose, the happiness of their child is foremost for most people.

As regards female promiscuity being vilified two examples spring to mind:

There is Bessa, the woman Chett murdered. She'd apparently bedded an entire village worth of men, and there's nothing to say that this was particularly looked down upon. The only negative we hear about her is that she wouldn't sleep with Chett, so he killed her. Chett was hunted and captured for her murder, so she clearly wasn't seen as less-than by the law. I can't imagine she was particularly looked up to for her behaviour, but she wasn't punished or vilified for it.

The other example is one of Littlefinger's smallfolk, a woman named Kella. She's pregnant at the time Sansa meets her, and she doesn't know who the father is.

These situations don't seem to be considered overly wrong, or even out of the ordinary. Contrast with Amerei Frey, for instance, who was married off quickly to a lower station due to her promiscuity. It's different among the nobility.

[Nagini's Neville]

55 minutes ago, cyberdirectorfreedom said:

This isn't a thought, though, right? It's narration. The narration is usually done differently between characters (Sansa's have a different feeling from, say, Jaime's) but it's not directly from their perspective. So I don't really think it's any reflection on what she's thinking, it's just describing what she looks like. Though, of course, the implication there might be that it's more about what GRRM is thinking...

However, I have to ask: is that even a sexualised statement? Does the mere mention of breasts create an air of sexuality? Maybe it's just me, but that quote only brings to mind a picture of a small-ish girl wearing a vest. The mention of her small breasts serves to get a better idea of what she looks like in a vest. Not for a moment am I picturing her naked breasts, and even more I'm not picturing them in any sexual manner.

Contrast that with, say, the description of Arianne's huge dark nipples, which is intentionally erotic considering it's from the viewpoint of a repressed horn-dog currently being aroused. It's different.

In her pov everything is filtered through her perception. 

I forgot how it's called "close set third person pov" or something. You can especially tell that's the case in Bran's, Arya's and Sansa's chapters.

GRRM goes into detail about it here:

So "thinking" was not the right word. It is how she is perceiving her body and most women wouldn't perceive their body the way she often does. Certainly not the only moment her breasts are described from her perception in that way.

As I've said before Jon also doesn't perceive his body in that way (using Jon, because you can compare him as a male counterpart to her, because of age etc..) His penis is never moving freely between his legs lol

This article https://www.buzzfeed.com/jasminnahar/heres-how-weird-itd-look-if-male-authors-wrote-about-men that @Lady Dacey provided shows what we are talking about. 

[Nagini's Neville]

9 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

As for the whole breats thing:

I think this whole thing is more than just the common male sexualized view - George really seems to have a thing for breasts and nipples, something I don't really share. For what it's worth from a male perspective I'd be not uninterested to know how the legs, asses, waists, and, you know, faces of certain characters looked in detail, but there is little to be had in this regard, in part likely due to George's overall prose style (which really doesn't give a lot of descriptions and the like).

But one has to keep in mind that he is really starting to experiment with a male-on-male view, too. With Jon Connington we have a gay POV, Daemon II Blackfyre also sexualized male bodies in TMK, and that trend might continue.

Still, this doesn't help with female POVs acting and viewing themselves and each other in weird way.

Yeah, I also think he might have a thing for breasts, but as you said, still makes it unrealistic from a female pov. And would be probably the same for other body parts. It's something different from a man's pov.

I agree with you on Jon and Ygritte: No choice-> no consent-> rape 

Why does George still make Jon fall in love with her? Or why is it written as a love story? Maybe because human beings are complicated and very often, where there is abuse, there still can be love? As messed up and wrong as it is, that's actually realistic imo. Dany also developed feelings for Drogo.

Still think it depends on the father/brother, if someone has a choice, when it comes to marriage and how much of a choice. It also depends on, if they actually perceive, that they have a choice (for example even if sansa might had a choice possibly, which I don't think she had, I don't think she thought she did), for a lot of ppl being cast out or shunned or hated by their family appears worst than death. They are unable to withstand the social pressure. And again it depends on the family, how severe that pressure is and what the consequences would be.

[R2D]

13 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Well, Jaehaerys/Alysanne, Jaehaerys/Shaera, Aegon/Rhaenys, Jaime/Cersei, Baelon/Alyssa are all loving incest couples. That kind of thing does work - even Aegon/Rhaena were working and caring partnership despite the fact that Rhaena was not exactly into men.

Jaime and Cersei....loving? That's the first time I've heard that.

13 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

That could be ... or Cersei just said that to cow Sansa into not making a scene. Because it seems clear to me that such a public rejection of Tyrion could have had consequences. If marriage wouldn't involve the word of the bride then they could do away with that kind of ceremony entirely.

Or they could have twisted the High Septon's arm until he accepted, or gotten another one. I don't think it's fair to say Sansa had a choice. She was outnumbered - in enemy territory, just like Jon. Jon also technically had a choice - to try to persuade Ygritte not to sell him out, or to try to prove he had broken his oaths in another way, or to stab Ygritte and make a run for it, or to wait until they were in the cave to knock her out - but those aren't really choices at all.

13 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

It is uncommon but it definitely happens. There are quite a few Hightower spinsters not to mention women like Asha, Brienne, Arianne, Jeyne Arryn (who never married), etc. It would be expected that you marry as a highborn woman, but there are ways around that. And one assumes that less fortunate women (i.e. ugly/crippled women from impoverished or insignificant houses would have much more trouble making matches for their daughters than the elite has.

If you mean Malora Hightower, she was described as mad, which could have affected her ability to get any husbands.

Asha - She was heir of the Iron Islands, basically raised as a boy. Her father wasn't looking for suitors.

Brienne - She rejected everyone of her suitors, and her father accepted that she wanted to be a warrior instead. If Selwyn Tarth was less kindly, who knows what would have happened?

Jeyne Arryn - Her father and brothers died, and she was Lady of the Vale, so there was no one to force her to marry.

13 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

But Shiera was the most beautiful woman of her age, and a legitimized bastard, so she was effectively a Targaryen princess. Her father couldn't have forced her to marry her even if he wanted to since he died a couple of years after her birth. However, one assumes Daeron II could have pushed her to marry, and Aerys I after his father, considering that they were the heads of House Targaryen at the time.

Didn't Aegon IV have like 16 other children? It wasn't important for Shiera to marry, which is probably why Daeron II or Aerys I didn't make any matches for her.

13 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

I meant Queen Shaera above, the sister-wife of Jaehaerys II who was originally betrothed to Luthor Tyrell but decided to wed her brother Jaehaerys instead.

That's because Egg allowed them to.

13 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Yeah, but she has the right to refuse - could be that this is the Dornish situation where women do have more rights. But then, Oberyn should be married, too, yet apparently he got around that somehow.

But this is because Doran allowed her to refuse. I'll agree - there is a choice - but if the consequences of the refusal range from destroying your relationship with your father, bringing shame to your family, creating hatred between the two houses, being cast out, etc those choices don't mean much. It might not be as extreme as getting killed, but you aren't exactly "free" to choose either.

As for Oberyn, it could be there was no great need, or they were waiting for the right deal. And paramours are an official position in Dorne - and bastards have very little reduction in status.

13 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

We see how Cersei could have dealt with her father in FaB when the Queen Regent Alyssa Velaryon dismisses her own lord husband, Rogar Baratheon, as Hand of the King. Cersei was the one with the legal power - she could and should have fought back. That she did not is part of the fact that essentially all of Tywin's children (and other family) are under his thumb. But that's a psychological issue. If push had come to shove Tywin would have had to stage a coup to seize power in KL.

Yeah I agree with that, Tywin had  no real power - but as can be seen domineering fathers will force and succeed in marrying their daughters to men they do not want to marry.  Lysa could have technically refused as well, but the pressure was too great.

13 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Drogo must know he is hurting Daenerys. Robert, well, he apparently was usually drunk when he and Cersei had sex - and if we allow Ygritte some weirdo cultural reason to get away with rape then Robert certainly could argue that being the manly man he is Cersei must enjoy what he is doing ... even more so since Cersei apparently was the one pleasuring him most of the time they had sex, anyway, considering she usually successful prevented him from having entering her vagina.

Robert does know he hurts Cersei - Cersei complained to him and he was guilty and ashamed. But I'm veering into rape apologist territory so I'll stop here. My point is that the mindsets of the perpetrators were very different.

5 hours ago, cyberdirectorfreedom said:

I also think it's somewhat worth noting that all of the men in arranged marriages are also raped. For instance, Ned was equally unwilling to bed Catelyn as she was to bed him (which is to say, "willing" but in the way that it's their duty, and they want to do their duty). Jon Arryn probably wanted Lysa as little as she wanted him, it was Hoster Tully who forced the marriage. The vast, vast majority of arranged marriages would be like this, too; two people who are forced to make do. Unfair to call either one a rapist, I'd say.

I agree that there's certainly a case to be made that Ned was raped (by modern standards) during the early stages of his marriage. We don't know Jon Arryn's thoughts on bedding Lysa - but we know that Lysa hated it, so I don't know if we can say that he was raped too.

The difference is, that yes, couples would have to sleep together a few times for the purpose of creating heirs, so we could definitely say there's mutual rape going on if both aren't very into it. But after that, there's no need to sleep together, but the husband can still force his wife into sex - as we see with Robert and Cersei. It would be in very unique situations where the wife can force the husband into sex - if she's significantly older than him, or physically stronger and more powerful - and the husband also has all the legal power in the marriage, the wife does not. I don't think it's ever stated in the books that a wife can claim his rights as a wife the same way a husband can.

5 hours ago, cyberdirectorfreedom said:

The common folk rarely have such political marriages: unless there's a particularly attractive daughter, or a particularly militarily capable son, most common people marry other common people. Without a political edge, it seems likely enough that most parents (though probably not all) would allow their children the opportunity to choose their own spouse. With nothing to gain and nothing to lose, the happiness of their child is foremost for most people.

Actually, Tywin took away the rights of the peasants to marry for love when he became Hand. Now they can only marry with the approval of their lord. 

Good examples on how the system differs between the peasants and the nobility. But with regards to your innkeeper example - that could be because of Sharna's sheer force of personality, not because of any equitable share of power between the husband and wife in peasant marriages. The person with less power can still control the one with more power, if they are of weak character, or if they have a low conflict personality.

3 hours ago, Nagini's Neville said:

Why does George still make Jon fall in love with her? Or why is it written as a love story? Maybe because human beings are complicated and very often, where there is abuse, there still can be love? As messed up and wrong as it is, that's actually realistic imo. Dany also developed feelings for Drogo.

Jon/Ygritte and Dany/Drogo are relationships which parallel each other. Both Jon and Dany were in situations where they were effectively raped, but they both came to love Ygritte and Drogo, and they introduced them to a different people and different way of life (The wildlings for Jon, the Dothraki for Dany) and widened their perspectives. However Ygritte and Drogo aren't the "true" loves of either Jon or Dany (they both have paragraphs in the books where they both describe themselves as being lonely even though their S/O was right next to them), instead Jon and Ygritte will meet and become that for each other.

[Nagini's Neville]

The thing with rape within marriage is, that the husband has all the power over the wife, she belongs to him by law. While she doesn't over him. So of course a husband might sleep with his wife, because he perceives it as his duty and wants heirs and most will want to because of the heirs. But he doesn't have to. It's his choice, while a wife has to obey her husband.

[It_spelt_Magalhaes]

19 hours ago, Lady Dacey said:

The author is a white male from a first world country. If we assume we currently live in a sexist society that discriminates against gender, race, etcetera, it is to be expected that some sexism will seep through the writing. If you do not agree we currently live in a sexist society I'll politely ask you open your eyes. 

Pointing out where GRRM uses sexist tropes is not the same as saying he is misogynistic or even sexist. But it is inescapable that the books were written by a old white man living in the United States. It shows. It shows in how voyeuristic the female POV characters are of their own bodies; it shows in how sex scenes described from female perspective still cater mostly to male pleasure; it shows in how often gendered deaths happen to women who aren't deemed important; it shows in many other instances that have been brought up in this thread and others before by people more qualified than myself. I find it important to stress these are not conscious choices to depict a time and place where sexism abounded, these are subtle unconscious choices that reflect how sexist our world still is. The fact that many people (men and women, but mostly men) can't even see this is happening in the book series we all read and love to analyse is, to me, very sad and scary, and it only reinforces my point. 

Sometimes the obvious needs to be spelled out. 

I can still remember my father reciting the names of early Portuguese Kings, their given surnames and a little extra just like he was taught in school as a child. There might be mention of a son or a battle, only very rarely a wife. Queens were political tools then used for line continuance.

And that litany of king after king after king, where queens have a marginal set value as to the uselfulness to their lord husband's aims is the general feel I get as I follow the various dinasties GRRM has built for ASOIAF.

In the end, it takes a constant effort to negate the things we are taught as children.. Awareness and values might change and evolve, but those initial building blocks are still there. 

[Melifeather]

12 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Unfortunately there is not the slightest hint that this kind of thing might be true. The First Men and the wildlings also have a patriarchal system, too (the Starks were never conquered by the Andals yet there was no Queen Regnant in the North, ever! - the sole difference with the wildlings is that their patriarchy is somewhat more like ours. Women do get a seat at the table if they really excel and are better than their male rivals - but the table still belongs to the men.

There were six Kings-beyond-the-Wall ... but never a queen.

I can't help but wonder what GRRM has in store for us when the She-Wolves of Winter is published. It's supposed to center around an ailing Lord of Winterfell with no male heir. Doesn't that sound like a set-up for a female heir having her birthright taken from her?

To me it seems obvious that the author has highlighted the realities of females in a medieval society. Too many fantasy stories gloss over the female characters. They're typically maidens in distress, saved by a prince or a knight. 

In the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan, the female characters have legitimate powers and rights, but book six has Rand Al'Thor commanding his Black Tower (male) students - students, mind you - annihilate in retaliation, a group of women - powerful Aes Sedai - along with their guard which was a large group of Shaido Aiel (160,000 warriors, many of them women) led by a female clan chief, and her significant band of Wise Women. The retaliation was for them kidnapping him with the intention of taking him to the White Tower. The book described their destruction as if running through a meat grinder. Only a few Aes Sedai survived the slaughter and were told to kneel or they would be knelt. It was basically a scene that was depicted as a man putting a group of uppity women in their place. George has many nods to the Wheel of Time series in ASOIAF - a significant number of them actually. I made a list somewhere...it really is ridiculous how much has been recycled compared to other "nods"....anyways, I think George has a different ending in mind for the women of this series. I really don't mind that you don't see it. It doesn't change what seems obvious to me.

 

12 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

And Dalla and Val really hammer home that fact. They are basically eye candy, women who rose to high position because they look great. That Dalla also happens to be wise and all is great, but she is the chosen companion of the big guy, that's something she got because of her looks not because she is just smart.

Dalla and Val are priestesses. Not the same as a clan leader or King, but a valued "council member" (for lack of a better word). Mance would not have become King Beyond the Wall without Dalla's council. The books haven't made that completely clear - yet - but I believe she's the one that told him about how to create white walkers, which are a manufactured threat. There's a whole thread about this topic, so I won't derail the current OP to go into that.

4 hours ago, cyberdirectorfreedom said:

Jon Arryn probably wanted Lysa as little as she wanted him, it was Hoster Tully who forced the marriage.

That's news to me! Why would you make this assertion? The fact is it was Jon Arryn's idea for he and Ned to propose a marriage alliance with Hoster so that the Tully's would join their cause and save Robert.

[Lord Varys]

4 hours ago, cyberdirectorfreedom said:

I think it wrong to say that just because the percentage of a certain group of people dying from x don't match statistics, that means it is unrealistic. It's statistically unlikely for heads to be the result of a coin-flip six times in a row, but it's certainly not impossible. A rash of deaths during childbirth (within a select group, in this case the nobility) is no more unrealistic than an extended period without them. It happens. We don't have information about the vast majority of expectant mothers; to take the number of a small group and extrapolating that to the entire population will never be entirely accurate. Could GRRM have written different deaths for some of these people? Sure, but that doesn't mean it's unrealistic, and I don't think it necessarily means it's sexist.

Insofar as it is the standard routine to explain the absence of female background characters it is sexist. And it is unrealistic in the sense that the ratio of children dying in infancy in the middle ages and the (royal) mothers dying in childbirth there do not really add up with those given for Westerosi royalty. Effectively, a realistic portrayal should have the numbers of Alysanne's children who died in infancy and childhood reversed with those who lived to adulthood.

Of course, that's only meaningful and relevant if George actually cared about how things were in the real middle ages - which he doesn't seem to do in those instances. Else not so many women would be part of the dead ladies club.

4 hours ago, cyberdirectorfreedom said:

I also think it's somewhat worth noting that all of the men in arranged marriages are also raped. For instance, Ned was equally unwilling to bed Catelyn as she was to bed him (which is to say, "willing" but in the way that it's their duty, and they want to do their duty). Jon Arryn probably wanted Lysa as little as she wanted him, it was Hoster Tully who forced the marriage. The vast, vast majority of arranged marriages would be like this, too; two people who are forced to make do. Unfair to call either one a rapist, I'd say.

Not really. This is a society where husbands have all the power and wives have none. It is called 'lord husband' for a reason. I agree that men can and are also pushed into marriages they don't want, but unlike women they can and do have other ways to have romances and sex with partners of their own choosing. It is also much easier for men to get around a marriage - just think of Brynden Tully. Or compare Archmaester Vaegon - who just had to insult the sister he was to marry in public to get out of that informal betrothal and later could just ignore other girls and women to get out of marriage entirely - to his sister Daella who eventually had to marry someone. She couldn't get out of that.

In a noble or royal marriage a wife does not initiate or force her lord husband or king to have sex. He calls her to his bedchamber or chooses to visit her in her apartments. She has no way to even get to him if he doesn't want to be in her presence. And nobody can make him to consummate his marriage or to have sex with her.

In that sense, no, men are definitely not raped in arranged marriages. It is up to them whether they have sex or not, which is most definitely not the case for their wives. This doesn't mean that being stuck in a marriage with a woman you loath or despise is great, but you can avoid her presence as her husband.

There are a number of marriages which are, due to the husband's unwillingness, unconsummated marriages (Aerys I-Aelinor, allegedly Baelor-Daena) but there is no case where a wife could decide that she would remain a maiden in her marriage against her lord husband's will. Even Sansa's marriage only remained unconsummated because Tyrion decided not to push the issue. Sansa had no other means to prevent him from raping her than him agreeing not to do it.

4 hours ago, cyberdirectorfreedom said:

Regarding power structure in marriages, we have the example of the innkeeper Sharna, met by Arya and co. and by Jaime and co. Sharna clearly has all the power in the relationship, to the extent that her husband and the boy they took in are only named 'Husband' and 'Boy'. Of course, this is also a clearly unhealthy relationship. However, one would assume that there are many such relationships, including such with a more equal power structure. The nobility is always scheming for more power, and their sons and daughters are expected to do the same, and are used for such measures. The common folk rarely have such political marriages: unless there's a particularly attractive daughter, or a particularly militarily capable son, most common people marry other common people. Without a political edge, it seems likely enough that most parents (though probably not all) would allow their children the opportunity to choose their own spouse. With nothing to gain and nothing to lose, the happiness of their child is foremost for most people.

Isn't it unclear whether the guy there actually is her husband? If he isn't, then it is quite unclear why she is the one in charge. Even more so, considering the whole thing is a front in guerillia like underground movement.

I'd be rather interested to see how commoner marriages work in Westeros, but chances are that only wealthy people actually do marry. Marriage is a social contract, not an expression of love, so one assumes peasants and merchants and craftsmen who own land and property do basically the same thing as the nobility - arrange profitable marriage contracts. The idea that there is modern 'love marriage nonsense' going on on the lowest levels of society is very unlikely and, as of yet, completely unsupported by the text.

Certainly there would be romantic relationships and sex among poor fieldhands and the rabble of the cities and towns, etc. but whether they all do marry or have to marry is, at this point, unclear.

4 hours ago, cyberdirectorfreedom said:

There is Bessa, the woman Chett murdered. She'd apparently bedded an entire village worth of men, and there's nothing to say that this was particularly looked down upon. The only negative we hear about her is that she wouldn't sleep with Chett, so he killed her. Chett was hunted and captured for her murder, so she clearly wasn't seen as less-than by the law. I can't imagine she was particularly looked up to for her behaviour, but she wasn't punished or vilified for it.

The other example is one of Littlefinger's smallfolk, a woman named Kella. She's pregnant at the time Sansa meets her, and she doesn't know who the father is.

These situations don't seem to be considered overly wrong, or even out of the ordinary. Contrast with Amerei Frey, for instance, who was married off quickly to a lower station due to her promiscuity. It's different among the nobility.

Well, you have to keep in mind that being sexually available is part of the job description of being a servant or an innkeep and the like. Both Bessa and Kella seem to be half-whores, not exactly virtuous women - who most definitely would also exist in the smallfolk (else there would be no need for proper whores).

3 hours ago, Nagini's Neville said:

Why does George still make Jon fall in love with her? Or why is it written as a love story? Maybe because human beings are complicated and very often, where there is abuse, there still can be love? As messed up and wrong as it is, that's actually realistic imo. Dany also developed feelings for Drogo.

One has to keep in mind that just because characters do feel certain things in certain situations doesn't mean it is right or good for them to feel that way. Dany essentially suffers from Stockholm Syndrome (in addition to her magical dragon blood stuff also being sort of activated by the stress she seems to be feeling - there is a magical quality to her that makes her story more than that of a girl who lives through a rape experience), Jon falls prey to his hormones. We have to keep that in mind to stop us from idealizing anything there.

3 hours ago, Nagini's Neville said:

Still think it depends on the father/brother, if someone has a choice, when it comes to marriage and how much of a choice. It also depends on, if they actually perceive, that they have a choice (for example even if sansa might had a choice possibly, which I don't think she had, I don't think she thought she did), for a lot of ppl being cast out or shunned or hated by their family appears worst than death. They are unable to withstand the social pressure. And again it depends on the family, how severe that pressure is and what the consequences would be.

Yeah, you are are right there. I just wanted to stress that it is still a difference between facing certain death and merely disgrace or other punishments.

Sansa was actually in a position of relative strength. They wanted her claim to Winterfell, meaning they could not kill her. The fact that both the Tyrells and the Lannisters wanted her should have told her as much. It did not but it could have.

2 hours ago, R2D said:

Jaime and Cersei....loving? That's the first time I've heard that.

Sure, they were happy with each other for most of their lives, and they are, in a very real sense, the closest couple in the entire series. They are twin siblings and lovers, after all.

2 hours ago, R2D said:

Or they could have twisted the High Septon's arm until he accepted, or gotten another one. I don't think it's fair to say Sansa had a choice. She was outnumbered - in enemy territory, just like Jon. Jon also technically had a choice - to try to persuade Ygritte not to sell him out or to tell her that they didn't have to sleep together, or to stab her and make a run for it, or to wait until they were in the cave to knock her out - but those aren't really choices at all.

Jon knew he faced certain death, Sansa should have known they would not kill her. And what's that about a new High Septon? Do you think Tywin would have murdered the man??? Not very likely. If there is a marriage ceremony then Sansa sabotaging that could have had dire consequences for the Lannisters - after all, there were wedding guests (like the Tyrells) who could have taken Sansa's side, insisting that Tywin do not continue to force the girl to marry his hideous dwarf son. Others may have taken her side, too.

2 hours ago, R2D said:

If you mean Malora Hightower, she was described as mad, which could have affected her ability to get any husbands.

She is a Hightower, her father would have found a husband for her.

2 hours ago, R2D said:

Asha - She was heir of the Iron Islands, basically raised as a boy. Her father wasn't looking for suitors.

Brienne - She rejected everyone of her suitors, and her father accepted that she wanted to be a warrior instead. If Selwyn Tarth was less kindly, who knows what would have happened?

Jeyne Arryn - Her father and brothers died, and she was Lady of the Vale, so there was no one to force her to marry.

The point here simply is that women are able to avoid marriages - how they do it depends on the overall situation, about we don't know all that much. However, Jeyne Arryn was under the guidance of Lord Protector Yorbert Royce until she came of age - who could have arranged marriages for her the same way the regents arranged marriages for Aegon III and his half-sisters. Yet Jeyne successfully avoided all such attempts assuming they were made.

Balon not pushing Asha into a marriage is pretty odd considering he would expect her to continue the Greyjoy line, no? His brothers all happen to be childless.

1 hour ago, Feather Crystal said:

I can't help but wonder what GRRM has in store for us when the She-Wolves of Winter is published. It's supposed to center around an ailing Lord of Winterfell with no male heir. Doesn't that sound like a set-up for a female heir having her birthright taken from her?

No, it is not about an ailing Lord of Winterfell with no male heir. It is about the ailing Lord Beron Stark who died having fathered five sons (two of which would rule as Lords of Winterfell) and two daughters.

The conflict is about what Stark woman (Beron's wife Lady Lorra Royce, various dowager ladies, (unmarried) sisters, other Stark relation, etc.) is going to run the North while Lord Beron is dying and, presumably, during the minoriy to his heir, Donnor Stark - who, I hope, is going to turn out to be a lackwit or otherwise incapacitated to make the regency question there more interesting - after all, with Lorra having given birth to at least six children while her husband was still capable of fathering them, meaning her eldest child must at least be already 7+ years old, but more likely already in his teens...

1 hour ago, Feather Crystal said:

To me it seems obvious that the author has highlighted the realities of females in a medieval society. Too many fantasy stories gloss over the female characters. They're typically maidens in distress, saved by a prince or a knight.

He does a pretty good job describing female characters ... not so much in the world-building department, setting up the circumstances women live in. Martinworld is much more shitty than the real middle ages in this regard.

1 hour ago, Feather Crystal said:

In the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan, the female characters have legitimate powers and rights, but book six has Rand Al'Thor commanding his Black Tower (male) students - students, mind you - annihilate in retaliation, a group of women - powerful Aes Sedai - along with their guard which was a large group of Shaido Aiel (160,000 warriors, many of them women) led by a female clan chief, and her significant band of Wise Women. The retaliation was for them kidnapping him with the intention of taking him to the White Tower. The book described their destruction as if running through a meat grinder. Only a few Aes Sedai survived the slaughter and were told to kneel or they would be knelt. It was basically a scene that was depicted as a man putting a group of uppity women in their place. George has many nods to the Wheel of Time series in ASOIAF - a significant number of them actually. I made a list somewhere...it really is ridiculous how much has been recycled compared to other "nods"....anyways, I think George has a different ending in mind for the women of this series. I really don't mind that you don't see it. It doesn't change what seems obvious to me.

Robert Jordan might have many female characters but his take on gender is backwater and quite ugly gender essentialism.

Westeros doesn't have any of that ... and women there essentially are in their place. Men do not really have to put them back in their place, do they?

1 hour ago, Feather Crystal said:

Dalla and Val are priestesses. Not the same as a clan leader or King, but a valued "council member" (for lack of a better word). Mance would not have become King Beyond the Wall without Dalla's council. The books haven't made that completely clear - yet - but I believe she's the one that told him about how to create white walkers, which are a manufactured threat. There's a whole thread about this topic, so I won't derail the current OP to go into that.

There is no textual evidence for any of this. Dalla seems to have some knowledge of magic, but nobody ever refers to her or Val ever as a 'priestess', nor do we know what kind of power or influence they would have if they were priestesses.

The idea that Mance needed Dalla to become king-beyond-the-Wall is also without basis as far as I know. He seems to have been king for quite some time, and they don't have children yet, not to mention that Dalla and Val both seem to be pretty young (i.e. around in their early twenties).

1 hour ago, Feather Crystal said:

That's news to me! Why would you make this assertion? The fact is it was Jon Arryn's idea for he and Ned to propose a marriage alliance with Hoster so that the Tully's would join their cause and save Robert.

 

[Melifeather]

26 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Westeros doesn't have any of that ... and women there essentially are in their place. Men do not really have to put them back in their place, do they?

How many readers cheer for Cersei? Why is she viewed as a conniving bitch? Her tactics are self-preservation and necessary to hold power in a male-dominated world.

26 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

The idea that Mance needed Dalla to become king-beyond-the-Wall is also without basis as far as I know. He seems to have been king for quite some time, and they don't have children yet, not to mention that Dalla and Val both seem to be pretty young (i.e. around in their early twenties).

Mance tries to redirect the blame away from Dalla for forsaking the black, but it was for her just the same. The old woods witch that repaired Mance's cloak was either Dalla's mother or teacher. Mance met Dalla while still a man of the Watch. He told Jon that he met her on a return trip to the Wall - Qhorin Halfhand was with him. While not explicitly detailed in the text, the meaning can be found between the lines. The repair of his cloak and meeting Dalla occurred at the same time, so by the time he returned to the Wall with Qhorin and was asked to turn in his cloak for one completely black, he refused. It was just an excuse to go back for the woman that nursed him back to health. It's not like Mance became the King Beyond the Wall immediately after leaving the Watch. It took years of negotiation and sometimes force, but I suspect that his most persuasive argument was in using information learned from Dalla.

[Nagini's Neville]

16 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Sansa was actually in a position of relative strength. They wanted her claim to Winterfell, meaning they could not kill her. The fact that both the Tyrells and the Lannisters wanted her should have told her as much. It did not but it could have.

I don't know, if I'd call "merely having to stay alive" a position of strength at all. First at all she was too young to understand it and secondly even if she did would she have endured the torture or wanted to, that undoubtedly would have followed, if she'd refused?

We don't know, if she was even able to refuse, maybe they would have found a way to marry them without her "consent"- Joff was the king after all. He had the right to order her around.

But even if they needed her "yes", how could she have ever felt like she had a choice, when she had been beaten up for months for basically nothing? What would the Lannisters have done to her, when they actually did want something from her and she knew that danger, because she actually had to live through her beatings.

So imo she actually understood very well- she had no choice no matter what.

[Nagini's Neville]

36 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

 

One has to keep in mind that just because characters do feel certain things in certain situations doesn't mean it is right or good for them to feel that way. Dany essentially suffers from Stockholm Syndrome (in addition to her magical dragon blood stuff also being sort of activated by the stress she seems to be feeling - there is a magical quality to her that makes her story more than that of a girl who lives through a rape experience), Jon falls prey to his hormones. We have to keep that in mind to stop us from idealizing anything there.

 

I certainly don't disagree with that. The problem is, that we can't tell, if it is stockholm syndrome or not. The fact that they don't have a choice in the matter, prevents us from ever knowing, if these feelings would have developed otherwise.

Stockholm syndrome probably occurred in a lot of marriages and a reason for that has actually been described as survival mechanism, so no wonder it happened so often. Would one rather live in a loveless marriage (and that forever) or in one with love or the illusion of love, because you can't get out anyway? Also normal ppl have a basic need for love, closeness and intimacy, so if this is the only person you'll ever get, you'll try to love them -very often automatically- just to satisfy that need.

I would have still liked it better if Dany experienced some typical symptoms and psychological consequences of her rape. That wouldn't have made her a weak character, but a realistic one. She still could have been magical Dragon-Lady. Ppl with such struggles are still able to do all kinds of things and have more to their character than that, it would have been just more realistic, otherwise she kind of becomes too Mary Sueish imo.

[R2D]

45 minutes ago, Nagini's Neville said:

I certainly don't disagree with that. The problem is, that we can't tell, if it is stockholm syndrome or not. The fact that they don't have a choice in the matter, prevents us from ever knowing, if these feelings would have developed otherwise.

Stockholm syndrome probably occurred in a lot of marriages and a reason for that has actually been described as survival mechanism, so no wonder it happened so often. Would one rather live in a loveless marriage (and that forever) or in one with love or the illusion of love, because you can't get out anyway? Also normal ppl have a basic need for love, closeness and intimacy, so if this is the only person you'll ever get, you'll try to love them -very often automatically- just to satisfy that need.

I would have still liked it better if Dany experienced some typical symptoms and psychological consequences of her rape. That wouldn't have made her a weak character, but a realistic one. She still could have been magical Dragon-Lady. Ppl with such struggles are still able to do all kinds of things and have more to their character than that, it would have been just more realistic, otherwise she kind of becomes too Mary Sueish imo.

I think this is exaggerating it. Nobles can get out of marriages - it just means they'll probably be disowned and lose all their privileges. They could stay in the woods and hunt deer and pick berries if they wanted to -but they won't keep their rich and lavish lifestyle, so they choose not to.

And most men aren't devoid of empathy. Even though they had a right to be terrible and brutal to their wives, most probably weren't. Marrying for love is a very modern concept, but both sides had an incentive to make the marriage work, as it would end up being better for both of them. I know this conflicts my opinion before where I said marriage would be "basically sex slavery", but I've changed my views a bit.

[R2D]

Re: being able to stay unmarried, I agree it depends on the people and personalities in question. For example, Jaeherys who was the epitome of the wise and kind king still tried to arrange a marriage for the delicate Princess Daella at the age of 13, and put his foot down that she had to marry by 16. Viserra was also shipped off at 15 to marry a man old enough to be her father, even though it wasn't politically necessary. Viserra most probably wouldn't want to in such a marriage - so why didn't she stop it? The outside coercion applied by her father and society made it hard for her to do so.

[Nagini's Neville]

9 hours ago, R2D said:

I think this is exaggerating it. Nobles can get out of marriages - it just means they'll be disowned and lose all their privileges. They could stay in the woods and hunt deer and pick berries if they wanted to -but they won't keep their rich and lavish lifestyle, so they choose not to.

And most men aren't devoid of empathy. Even though they had a right to be terrible and brutal to their wives, most probably weren't. Marrying for love is a very modern concept, but both sides had an incentive to make the marriage work, as it would end up being better for both of them. I know this conflicts my opinion before where I said marriage would be "basically sex slavery", but I've changed my views a bit.

I'm just saying there could be some form of stockholm syndrome taking place. Maybe not the classical form like in kidnapping. And doesn't have to be, but there is no way to know if love would have happened, if there was a choice.

And if you could get out of marriages again depends on the situation and families. I'd argue that most daughters could not and probably would not even got the idea to get out like Cat, because that was just the way it was. Being send away and disinherited and cut off from your family is perceived worse than death for many. Just watch some docs on cults or religious organizations, a lot of ppl stay to keep their families and they don't even have to "hunt deer and pick beers"- and really what skills would a noble girl have to survive - we see how Sansa was raised. Also just way to sheltered, didn't even see someone die all her life in a world in which ppl are killed and raped all the time. By having limited knowledge and useful skills, you are kept totally dependent on your family. You need someone to protect you. In the end of the day, better being raped by you husband and make your family happy, than die on the streets and be raped by random guys. 

Even today there are still a lot of cultures in which girls are married of against their will and still stay, because the pressure is to high, they don't want to lose their families and they think that's just the way it is, there is no way out. has a lot to do with how you were raised, what you have been brainwashed to accept. Important is not necessarily the actual choice, but the perceived choice. Do they think they have a choice? Even if they understand they have a choice, giving up family and safety is a big price to pay.

[Nagini's Neville]

8 hours ago, R2D said:

Re: being able to stay unmarried, I agree it depends on the people and personalities in question. For example, Jaeherys who was the epitome of the wise and kind king still tried to arrange a marriage for the delicate Princess Daella at the age of 13, and put his foot down that she had to marry by 16. Viserra was also shipped off at 15 to marry a man old enough to be her father, even though it wasn't politically necessary. Viserra most probably wouldn't want to in such a marriage - so why didn't she stop it? The outside coercion applied by her father and society made it hard for her to do so.

I'd argue probably impossible to do so. That's what it felt like to her. You got to be very strong- willed, think outside the box and be very confident (to possibly make it on your own, or be able to deal with the consequences) to be able to do so. An Arya type for example, who already knows very strongly that this is all wrong.

[Melifeather]

I think it is difficult for men to truly understand what it's like to be a woman even in today's society. We can be better educated and have an abundance of experience and never be viewed as equals. There are many men that will say they believe women have equal rights, and yet those same men: 1) won't vote for a woman to be President, 2) don't believe women can be physically or mentally strong enough to be on equal footing with men in the military, 3) won't help with housework or childcare, 4) believe men on average are better drivers, 5) won't be friends with any woman that they don't also find desirable, 6) if any cleavage, belly, or scantily clad body part is exposed we were asking for trouble, and 7) commonly call successful women pushy bitches. Hillary Clinton is a perfect example of how woman are judged by the patriarchy today, as is Nancy Pelosi. Both woman are extremely competent. Both are viciously attacked by men and women alike. If they were men they would be applauded and admired. Instead Hillary has been through seven probes investigating the Benghazi attack, has been cleared of wrong doing every time, and yet we continue to hear Trump and his supporters chanting, lock her up, lock her up.

[Peach King]

39 minutes ago, Feather Crystal said:

Hillary Clinton is a perfect example of how woman are judged by the patriarchy today, as is Nancy Pelosi. Both woman are extremely competent. Both are viciously attacked by men and women alike. If they were men they would be applauded and admired. Instead Hillary has been through seven probes investigating the Benghazi attack, has been cleared of wrong doing every time, and yet we continue to hear Trump and his supporters chanting, lock her up, lock her up.

Er, I obviously agree that women suffer because of the patriarchy even today, but that doesn't mean we have to support rich white women in positions of power  like Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi.  (And a rich racist war criminal in a position of power, in Hillary's case).

[The Young Maester]

1 hour ago, Peach King said:

Er, I obviously agree that women suffer because of the patriarchy even today, but that doesn't mean we have to support rich white women in positions of power  like Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi.  (And a rich racist war criminal in a position of power, in Hillary's case).

You Americans did the right thing by not putting Hillary in power.