The Scotts
Jan. 26th, 2011 04:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jessara40k_ljFigured that since I'd introduced the Scotts and their background was an interesting example of how strange the Families can get I'd talk about them.
The Scotts are one of, if not the most matriarchal of the Families. Their founding philosophy is (in my opinion) a more logical take on the rape-apologist's creed that men are incapable of controling their sexual impulses - therefore men are incapable of sufficient self-control to run their own lives properly and should be kept under firm control by women. They keep up their genetic diversity by adopting women who fit in with their beliefs and attitudes and letting them choose Scott men as their consorts, this is a tradition dating from the first Scott, who had six sons before her first - and only - daughter and adopted women to take her sons as consorts. Her daughter and grandaughters found men from outside the Families who were willing to sign the same sort of contract the first Scott's consort did. At the time the Scotts didn't restrict their men as severely as they do now, but they also weren't anywhere near important enough for any established Family to offer their men as consorts.
Scott men are restricted to their Family compound until they reach the age of sixteen and pass their Basic Diplomas. The Family compound is fairly large, roughly a square mile of land surrounding a group of buildings providing an exercise centre, a school and numerous homes. Boys are only educated at the compound school, by the Scott men who were chosen to complete Secondary Certificates and teaching degrees - usually the more assertive and less desirable men. Home schooling is allowed for everyone provided the child is capable of passing a Basic Diploma of some variety by the age of eighteen - and there are yearly tests required to make sure that each child is on course to do so. Sometimes the final few years are taught by Scott women who are less assertive than the Scotts expect their daughters to be. Scott daughters study at the compound school for the first five or six years of their education, as part of socialising them and the boys the right way (as in girls are called on first and encouraged to speak up and question the teacher in a way that boys aren't.)
From two years before they're old enough to start school Scott men are required to wear veils and to dress in a way that covers their body from throat to wrist to ankle. They're put into chastity devices at age eleven, and the key is held by their immediately older sister wherever reasonable, until they're given to a woman as her consort. (Generally a Scott woman will use a selective spermicide to ensure that she has a daughter first, then she'll have as many sons as she feels comfortable with and possibly end with a second daughter. However no Scott woman is ever compelled to have children and if she chooses not to have children at all it is fully accepted, although it eliminates her as an option for Family Head.) If they don't have an older sister then they are taken care of by their closest older female relative, and their mother always has a back-up key in case of emergencies. When the woman who holds their primary key has to leave the compound for any length of time she's expected to find another woman she trusts to take care of the men under her charge, but no one reminds her about it, she's expected to be responsible enough not to need reminding. The unclaimed men generally know to go to their father if their sister hasn't made those arrangements for them, and this can lead to a loss of responsibilities and status for her.
Scott women are usually larger and stronger than Scott men nowadays, because although no-one talks about it Scott men are prescribed the same mixture of drugs and hormones that made Antoinette's father more than half a foot shorter than he should have been. It is perfectly safe, and even legal, however the strength enhancement treatments some Scott women choose to go through in preference to building strength the old fashioned way, or even with a little hormonal help, are not legal as they involve a fairly significant degree of risk. The only legal ways to have true strength enhancements are to be purpose-bred or to inherit them from a purpose-bred parent.
Nowadays Scott women born into the Family generally take consorts from the Scott men who are fairly distantly related to the Scott herself, while the women who are adopted in are given sons, nephews or male cousins up to second degree once removed of the Scott. The inheritance policy is that the Scott chooses her heir first from her most distant direct female descendents i.e. great-grandaughters if she expects to live long enough for them to reach the age thirty before her death, then the next generation closer to her until it reaches her daughters, and if no-one is acceptable in that generation she chooses from her nieces, or if they aren't suitable she chooses from the women who took her male direct descendants as consorts, again starting from the most distant generation available to her. And the Scott must always have an heir designated and in training for the possibility of taking control of the Family if the Scott dies, an heir who also understands that if the Scott lives long enough to see a suitable new heir in the next generation she will be replaced, and accepts that.
All consortings involving a Scott use the same contract, one which now bears more resemblance to a concubine's indenture than a more standard consorting contract. The first Scott's contract was written by her consort, and explicitly gave her all the rights that were implicit in the laws and enforcement patterns of the time, partly as a political stunt and protest against the lack of consorts rights. At the time it was as rare for a woman to take a man as her consort as it is in our world for a man to take a woman's name upon marriage. The women who took the first Scott's sons as consorts asked for the same sort of contract that she had, and that was accepted, as consort's rights hadn't moved forward much in the intervening years. The Terenevs were the first Family to offer any sort of alliance with the Scotts, roughly three hundred years, or ten Terenevs ago, and part of sealing the agreement was that the Scotts would provide a consort to the Terenev Family, to reconfirm the alliance every third Terenev. The first time it was for a daughter of one of the Terenev's second cousins, then for the daughter of one of the Terenev's first cousins, then for the Terenev's niece, and this time - and every renewal from now on - they're providing a consort for the Terenev's daughter, Terese in this case. Another aspect of the agreement was that these consortings would always be done under the contract the Scotts used for their men - as at the time the contract was still mostly about explicitly granting the implicit and unspoken rights of a sire over his or her consort, and the Terenev of the time knew that the Scott she made the agreement with intended to keep them that way. Since it was good enough for the Terenevs to seal an alliance with the Scotts by accepting a Scott male under the contract used by Scotts inside the Family the other Families who made alliances with them asked for similar terms. Over the years, although it was the first Scott's intention to make the consorting contracts more lenient as consort's rights became better defended, Scott consorting contracts have become more stringent, giving Scott consorts less and less control over their own lives and bodies.
The Scotts are very accepting of transwomen who fit into their ideal of womanhood, self-confident, competent, dominant and at least a little aggressive, even transwomen who are assumed to be Scott boys at birth. It is fairly commonly known that they'll accept any woman who chooses to present herself as such and who meets their standards, and that they are willing to fund transition if necessary. They aren't anywhere near as accepting of transmen, transwomen who don't fit their ideals of womanhood, or transpeople who don't fit into the traditional binary. Kim's sister pushed her mother to offering Kim as one of the options for Terese's consort, by advising her to mostly offer the sort of man they reserve for women who are adopted in - as it would be something of an insult to do otherwise, because she believes that Kim is a transwoman who prefers being submissive. She also coached him a little bit, advising him to speak up, and ask Terese questions, try to show her that he has a brain.
The Scotts are one of, if not the most matriarchal of the Families. Their founding philosophy is (in my opinion) a more logical take on the rape-apologist's creed that men are incapable of controling their sexual impulses - therefore men are incapable of sufficient self-control to run their own lives properly and should be kept under firm control by women. They keep up their genetic diversity by adopting women who fit in with their beliefs and attitudes and letting them choose Scott men as their consorts, this is a tradition dating from the first Scott, who had six sons before her first - and only - daughter and adopted women to take her sons as consorts. Her daughter and grandaughters found men from outside the Families who were willing to sign the same sort of contract the first Scott's consort did. At the time the Scotts didn't restrict their men as severely as they do now, but they also weren't anywhere near important enough for any established Family to offer their men as consorts.
Scott men are restricted to their Family compound until they reach the age of sixteen and pass their Basic Diplomas. The Family compound is fairly large, roughly a square mile of land surrounding a group of buildings providing an exercise centre, a school and numerous homes. Boys are only educated at the compound school, by the Scott men who were chosen to complete Secondary Certificates and teaching degrees - usually the more assertive and less desirable men. Home schooling is allowed for everyone provided the child is capable of passing a Basic Diploma of some variety by the age of eighteen - and there are yearly tests required to make sure that each child is on course to do so. Sometimes the final few years are taught by Scott women who are less assertive than the Scotts expect their daughters to be. Scott daughters study at the compound school for the first five or six years of their education, as part of socialising them and the boys the right way (as in girls are called on first and encouraged to speak up and question the teacher in a way that boys aren't.)
From two years before they're old enough to start school Scott men are required to wear veils and to dress in a way that covers their body from throat to wrist to ankle. They're put into chastity devices at age eleven, and the key is held by their immediately older sister wherever reasonable, until they're given to a woman as her consort. (Generally a Scott woman will use a selective spermicide to ensure that she has a daughter first, then she'll have as many sons as she feels comfortable with and possibly end with a second daughter. However no Scott woman is ever compelled to have children and if she chooses not to have children at all it is fully accepted, although it eliminates her as an option for Family Head.) If they don't have an older sister then they are taken care of by their closest older female relative, and their mother always has a back-up key in case of emergencies. When the woman who holds their primary key has to leave the compound for any length of time she's expected to find another woman she trusts to take care of the men under her charge, but no one reminds her about it, she's expected to be responsible enough not to need reminding. The unclaimed men generally know to go to their father if their sister hasn't made those arrangements for them, and this can lead to a loss of responsibilities and status for her.
Scott women are usually larger and stronger than Scott men nowadays, because although no-one talks about it Scott men are prescribed the same mixture of drugs and hormones that made Antoinette's father more than half a foot shorter than he should have been. It is perfectly safe, and even legal, however the strength enhancement treatments some Scott women choose to go through in preference to building strength the old fashioned way, or even with a little hormonal help, are not legal as they involve a fairly significant degree of risk. The only legal ways to have true strength enhancements are to be purpose-bred or to inherit them from a purpose-bred parent.
Nowadays Scott women born into the Family generally take consorts from the Scott men who are fairly distantly related to the Scott herself, while the women who are adopted in are given sons, nephews or male cousins up to second degree once removed of the Scott. The inheritance policy is that the Scott chooses her heir first from her most distant direct female descendents i.e. great-grandaughters if she expects to live long enough for them to reach the age thirty before her death, then the next generation closer to her until it reaches her daughters, and if no-one is acceptable in that generation she chooses from her nieces, or if they aren't suitable she chooses from the women who took her male direct descendants as consorts, again starting from the most distant generation available to her. And the Scott must always have an heir designated and in training for the possibility of taking control of the Family if the Scott dies, an heir who also understands that if the Scott lives long enough to see a suitable new heir in the next generation she will be replaced, and accepts that.
All consortings involving a Scott use the same contract, one which now bears more resemblance to a concubine's indenture than a more standard consorting contract. The first Scott's contract was written by her consort, and explicitly gave her all the rights that were implicit in the laws and enforcement patterns of the time, partly as a political stunt and protest against the lack of consorts rights. At the time it was as rare for a woman to take a man as her consort as it is in our world for a man to take a woman's name upon marriage. The women who took the first Scott's sons as consorts asked for the same sort of contract that she had, and that was accepted, as consort's rights hadn't moved forward much in the intervening years. The Terenevs were the first Family to offer any sort of alliance with the Scotts, roughly three hundred years, or ten Terenevs ago, and part of sealing the agreement was that the Scotts would provide a consort to the Terenev Family, to reconfirm the alliance every third Terenev. The first time it was for a daughter of one of the Terenev's second cousins, then for the daughter of one of the Terenev's first cousins, then for the Terenev's niece, and this time - and every renewal from now on - they're providing a consort for the Terenev's daughter, Terese in this case. Another aspect of the agreement was that these consortings would always be done under the contract the Scotts used for their men - as at the time the contract was still mostly about explicitly granting the implicit and unspoken rights of a sire over his or her consort, and the Terenev of the time knew that the Scott she made the agreement with intended to keep them that way. Since it was good enough for the Terenevs to seal an alliance with the Scotts by accepting a Scott male under the contract used by Scotts inside the Family the other Families who made alliances with them asked for similar terms. Over the years, although it was the first Scott's intention to make the consorting contracts more lenient as consort's rights became better defended, Scott consorting contracts have become more stringent, giving Scott consorts less and less control over their own lives and bodies.
The Scotts are very accepting of transwomen who fit into their ideal of womanhood, self-confident, competent, dominant and at least a little aggressive, even transwomen who are assumed to be Scott boys at birth. It is fairly commonly known that they'll accept any woman who chooses to present herself as such and who meets their standards, and that they are willing to fund transition if necessary. They aren't anywhere near as accepting of transmen, transwomen who don't fit their ideals of womanhood, or transpeople who don't fit into the traditional binary. Kim's sister pushed her mother to offering Kim as one of the options for Terese's consort, by advising her to mostly offer the sort of man they reserve for women who are adopted in - as it would be something of an insult to do otherwise, because she believes that Kim is a transwoman who prefers being submissive. She also coached him a little bit, advising him to speak up, and ask Terese questions, try to show her that he has a brain.
