How historical are matrilineal marriages?

[Lord_P]

This question is aimed to those who know more about history (particularly Medieval history) than I do. Did matrilineal marriages actually happen in real life at all or is it just a gameplay thing? And if they happened, how often and in what circumstances?

 

[tywinzo]

Didn't happen.

 

[Mike Louis]

Matrilineal marriages wasn't historical but was first put in the game so that if you had either a female ruler and or heir you wasn't SOL (a non dynastic heir means Game Over).

 

[Me_]

Someone may drag out some obscure example from the depths of history, but basically it's a work of fiction. A way to go around the dynastic nature of the score system (which is useless and will hopefully be dropped for CK3).

 

[Rationalsanity]

I can think of one example where a king (of Denmark I think) took his mother's family name because an uncle or grandfather was particularly powerful.

 

[Legionary Guard]

I can think of one example where a king (of Denmark I think) took his mother's family name because an uncle or grandfather was particularly powerful.

And I recall the same thing with a Kievan prince taking the name of his Byzantine mother, but for the most part it is indeed fiction.

 

[Knotz]

I just kind of assumed they're reflective of if the woman is substantially more powerful/more prestigious/relevant than her husband. I don't think people signed contracts between them on their wedding nights that said "I, male, am a Karling, you, female, are a de Toulouse, all our children will definitely be strictly from MY (male) dynasty" it was just he default that the guy's dynasty would get president. But I could be totally wrong. I mean these were still marriages and I imagine a big part of marriages was to cement ties between two powerful families, no? So it's not like you'd go out of your way to alienate your wife's family.

But I'm fine with it being a game contrivance, no one IRL got a game over screen cuz their noble mother married a guy.

 

[Thure]

It did happen. Ic ould give you some exemples. It's not fiction. If the mother was more prestigious the kids inherite her name.

The Georgian Bagrationi for exemple. The sons of Tamar Bagrationi were Bagrationis.

The House of Welf inherited the name 'Welf' from their mother (the father was from the House of Este).

Didn't happen.

Matrilineal marriages wasn't historical but was first put in the game so that if you had either a female ruler and or heir you wasn't SOL (a non dynastic heir means Game Over).

If you don't know anything about the topic it would be better to don't say anything insteed of spreading false informations.

 

[Robert II]

It did happen. Ic ould give you some exemples. It's not fiction. If the mother was more prestigious the kids inherite her name.

The Georgian Bagrationi for exemple. The sons of Tamar Bagrationi were Bagrationis.

The House of Welf inherited the name 'Welf' from their mother (the father was from the House of Este).





If you don't know anything about the topic it would be better to don't say anything insteed of spreading false informations.

But that's not a matrilineal marriage that's switching names because the mothers name was more prestigious. In game you agree they will be apart of the womans dynasty from the get go.

 

[Me_]

The House of Welf inherited the name 'Welf' from their mother (the father was from the House of Este).

Este and Welf were one family. I don't remember which one split from which, but basically one was a cadet of the other.

And Tamar Bagrationi's a questionable case as well (her husband is considered Barationi by some chroniclers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Soslan).

 

[Thure]

But that's not a matrilineal marriage that's switching names because the mothers name was more prestigious. In game you agree they will be apart of the womans dynasty from the get go.

Ingame this is represented by Matrilinear marriage. This is way better gameplay wise than the prestigious rule.

 

[SigurdStormhand]

I'm not sure that it's true it "never" happened but I can't think of any real examples. there are examples of sons taking their mother's name but that was a prestige thing - it didn't actual mean they had a different Dynastic relationship

 

[corny.1234]

Daenerys Targaryen second marriage was matrilineal, but her husband died in the grand revolution of mereen. She did not give birth within this Mariage.
Source: the history of westeros houses

 

[Kapitalisti]

It's one of those "acceptable breaks from reality" since it would be too easy to get a game over without it.

 

[sinanziric]

I've never heard for matrilineal marriages IRL, but that stuff is needed for a game to function properly, some things can't be simulated right.

 

[Closet Skeleton]

Este and Welf were one family. I don't remember which one split from which, but basically one was a cadet of the other.

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

The Welf branch of the House of Este got the name from a older house that went extinct in the male line. Neither Younger Welf nor Este really split from each other since the proper first members of each house were brothers (their father used the name Este but the younger brother's line used the name because they kept the eponymous seat).

Outside of the time frame the main examples of this are Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov and Habsburg-Lorraine, where the house was usually/officially just named after the more famous female line. The Tudor monarchs also called themselves Plantagenets despite that only being (twice) in the female line, its only modern historians that call them Tudors for ease of splitting up periods. Dynasties having multiple possible names makes things very confusing, if you use non-standard (but still historically accurate) names you can actually find tons of CK2 style matrilinial marriages.

More likely is that a family takes its name from a seat it acquired through a female line, main example of this being the house of Hesse.

In very modern times; Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh is a member of the House of Mountbatten through his mother and his children are of the House of Windsor through his wife.

 

[tywinzo]

It did happen. Ic ould give you some exemples. It's not fiction. If the mother was more prestigious the kids inherite her name.

The Georgian Bagrationi for exemple. The sons of Tamar Bagrationi were Bagrationis.

If you don't know anything about the topic it would be better to don't say anything insteed of spreading false informations.

Your example isn't a matrilineal marriage. And I could tell you the same thing about posting false information - since it didn't happen. Seriously though - relax. Why jump to the gun? There was humour in there - and funnily enough I got 2-5 votes for saying something which was at least intended to be pretty close to what Me_ said, who got a 7-1 vote . So maybe my joke wasn't brilliant or easy to get, or the part which was serious was too strong, but of course I had a reason for it? Or what did you assume?

There are several examples of people picking their mother's last name (including non-marriage ones) or other types of last names. Hell, there are even examples of people being member of several dynasties at the same time, or those who were regarded to be a little of each, not to mention those who changed names during the course of their life. So all of the CK2 dynasty/house limitations are already fundamentally broken to begin with - they don't come close to fully describing history. It's a weird approach to start describing history with CK2-terms. The whole dynasty thing is a also bit of a loose goose to begin with (lots of modern classifications tucked in there), so how could then a strict matrilineal marriage system be built on it if that foundation isn't even there. I'd argue not even the patrilineal marriage works with that in mind.

To be honest, I'm not even sure exactly what the original poster's question means - of course history was not exactly like CKII where there was a matrilineal marriage. You'd need written records proving this was a property of the marriage itself (not derived from the children's choice of dynasty since that's another thing, even if those things can coincide). Then you'd also have to show of course that what they mean by matrilineal (using that word exactly) is exactly what we have in CK2. E.g. "Person X and Y are hereby married matrilineally before God, thereby granting assurance that their children will therefore be of the mother's dynasty (XYZ).." or variations thereof. Anything less than that and you haven't, or anything more and you haven't..

I'm no history professor, but from what I read in history books (which I do read from time to time), I've never once seen anyone lay forth evidence of some sort of matrilineal and patrilineal division as a property of the marriage itself. There are just plain marriages, with or without conditions/dowries/dowers/mortages/etc/tc and all of that, but no such things as a matrilineal marriage. So it's not like my opinion is completely unfounded? That said, perhaps there are things I have yet to read where precisely this thing exists, so I could be false. But even then, since this isn't a elite research forum, I retain my right to be (unknowingly) incorrect.

 

[Rationalsanity]

I think we can all agree that they happen far more often in the game than they did in history, but that they are also necessary to keep the game fun.

 

[tywinzo]

I'd personally prefer a more realistic model that achives the same thing (which keeps the game fun), but with more benefits. The model should blur the strict dynastic categorizations a bit, while also more naturally/dynamically assign last names, potentially being member of many families, or having the ability to shift. Marriage themselves shouldn't have a mode, there should just be marriages. Maybe your kid is 70% Este and 25% Welf and 5% Salian. If it turns out that the best estate inheritance comes from your Salian line, the kid might end up making a claim to that name.

At the moment, the incentives for marrying daughters is too weak, which I find unrealistic, and potentially also ahistorical. It gets weird when you can't find good matrilineal marriages and you don't want to marry them them patrilnieally since then you just end up inserting foreign dynasty kids into your succession line.

 

[Nyrael]

Matrilineal marriages did not exist (there was only marriage), but neither did the dynasties in CK2's or Westeros terms. In Medieval times, nobles tended to see themselves as descendants of X more than they saw themselves as a part of some named family (of course, that too differed from culture to culture).