A discussion about fathers. Historical interpretation and reflection.

Amon · 2019-03-01 19:25:02

Considering I've seen plenty of different suggestions on fatherhood, some of them less...
hmm. real than others. I've come here to have a little discussion about the concept of
motherhood and fatherhood to hopefully bring some more insight into this situation
and why men popping babies is not in the spirit of the game.

OHOL is unique in the sense that it captures humans in an interesting way.
With all the hijinks roleplayers and part-roleplayers get into, it is very interesting to sometimes
just sit back and reflect on various interactions and archetypes of people you see in the game,
how they treat each other, favouritism, nepotism. I know, I know, it's not fair, it's not efficient.
But it's human... And that is what makes it interesting.

The man.
The uncle (the mother's brother specifically) still to this day is a very important figure in a child's life.
And that is the role that OHOL captures. And thus the man can only have three relations:
Nieces and nephews through his sister.
Brothers and sisters through his mother.
Uncles and aunts through his grandmother.

OHOL is matrilinear from the start, the game is started with an Eve.
And it makes sense, such is how humanity started out. Let me explain

Throughout most of our history, there was likely no concept of fatherhood,
there was a scarce connection between copulation and birth, the events were
9 months apart (with one birth and multiple copulations) and to most,
insignificant of a link. The female folk were the lifeline and the men were
the protectors, providers, the labourers.
Again, see the game, it is very Matrilinear indeed.

And here we come... When did men become fathers?

And here we go... Drumroll, please!

!!!~THE PATRIARCHY~!!!

A very important event in human history was when men realized their place in the creation
of future generations. When children were part their 'own'.
(mind you, we had cultures where children were solely the fathers')
Once the link was discovered, the importance of 'my children' my legacy came to the forefront.
Efforts moved from the collective to the personal. Securing women to definitely know the children are yours' also became a thing.

But how does fatherhood play into OHOL? Precisely as how it did, but of course in a more useful manner...

I present to you a situation with Ana Fletcher and Tom Bailey.
Ana Fletcher is a migrant from a different town, stumbling upon the almost defunct Bailey town.
The Bailey bloodline is dying out with no fertile females left and only Tom, his greying mother and uncle left.

Ana and Tom meet, oh rejoice. Usually, well..as how the game is, the other bloodline would take over the town. But here...
Tom: Ana Fletcher, Do you want to marry me?
Ana: I do!

And thus Ana Fletcher has been married into the Bailey bloodline. The Patrilinear bloodline has begun. At least for this pair.
All of Ana's children from this event forward will now count into the Bailey bloodline, and not the Fletcher one.
(perhaps the portraits get featured together as a married couple with a different frame to link to the other
bloodline on either lineage hmm, their children together only displaying in the father's family tree)
No, the man is not magically popping children.
That would be disastrous and take away from realism as well as taking away man's ability to work uninterrupted.

Ana Fletcher's children are now Baileys and belong to the Bailey bloodline.
To them, Tom Bailey is their father and their children will belong to the Bailey bloodline.
While the fletcher's daughter was stolen away, the Bailey lineage has been saved.
And this now is the patrilinear bloodline. At least for one generation until further
marriages happen to unite different bloodlines... And as it goes with bastards, they belong to the mother.

Perhaps encouraging even more families to live in the same village. Definitely an investment for future tech progression.
Maybe. Or weird roleplaying conventions or competition. (recalls that time when a girl swore to kill me after getting married to a boy she wanted...haha)

This is at least how I see Fatherhood to make most sense in OHOL.

Alas that is what makes most sense. When men began to 'claim' things to themselves.
When they realized they too had part in the circle of life beyond just being protectors and workers.

Last edited by Amon (2019-03-01 19:28:48)

Aurora Aurora · 2019-03-01 19:31:38

DADS!
DADS!
DADS!
DADS!

Oblong · 2019-03-01 20:37:55

Yeah, seems kind of interesting!
I’ve actually been born into a multi-line town before— Eve Dupont stumbling across Croft Town and saying that a man from that town was my father. Kind of refreshing to see a dad that technically isn’t related to me since it doesn’t feel incestuous.

voy178 · 2019-03-01 20:40:58

Had a "dad" in a town recently. A second cousin once removed. Feels pretty okay to me. He was a stay-at-home dad, fed and assisted me in the home.

Amon · 2019-03-01 22:36:12

I've often been a dad to my abandoned nephews and other unrelated kids. It's really something people long for and why the need and desire for papas are even here in the first place.
But you know I don't mind a good niece/nephew uncle relationship. It usually grows best if there are fewer people around and no pressure to survive.

As well as roleplaying being married. My husband in that life kept bringing children to me from god knows where and I raised em all. A damn good life that was lol.

Last edited by Amon (2019-03-01 22:37:14)

antking:]# · 2019-03-02 00:27:06

I think that a reason we don't have a lot of fathers is because child hood is so short! 4 min and you become a hard working individual!

The moment you get hair your off your mom's lap.... Which doesn't make sense as usually daughters(just being historically accurate) would de sold off to marriage at age 15-16 (though marriage was probably planed at age 5...) while boy's left the house about 18-20 and to get married with their planned wife...

if we want more parental roles we must extend the "child hood" also the thought of just letting a five year old work is just strange when voiced... but I'm not sure how to extend the "child hood" of a kid without nerfing the entire game!

DestinyCall · 2019-03-02 00:32:51

We can almost do this already. If you are born without a last name and someone from a different lineage names you, don't you get their last name?

We just need a way to change last names in game. You couldn't marry within your own lineage (or maybe you could, but nothing would change). But if a woman married into a different lineage, her last name woild change to match her "husband" and her children would carry that last name going forward.

Most of the time it would just be for RP puposes, but it would also provide a way to revive a dying lineage by finding a new girl who was willing to leave her family name behind.

hmrka · 2019-03-02 00:59:28

I'd like fathers too but I wouldn't like them in the way you demonstrated. Matrilinear families feel much more natural, because it is the Woman that gives birth. It is her that has to raise her kid, name it, feed it. There is no reason to add "patriarchy" into the game, It would ruin the sense that we are all equal.

This is from another topic, but I feel like it belongs here.

BlueDiamondAvatar wrote:

MultiLife wrote:
I'd like to be able to link males to the next generations in a family tree. Only women get to make cool long chains of people included but males just sit in their dead-end tree branch looking at nieces connecting to the next generation with their daughters. Damn these asexually reproducing strong independent women.
I just want to step in and provide a real world response here. Sucks doesn't it? Well, guess what, in the real world only men have counted for most of human civilization. I happen to know my family history back the fourteen generations to our "immigrant ancestor" to North America, but the monuments and historic records tell me all about my male line of ancestors, and practically nothing from the female ancestors. As a woman I find this appalling. I don't even know the first name of my female immigrant ancestor, but I know her dad became one of the first governors of Connecticut and that her great-nephews started a well known company.
[...]
My grandmother wrote multiple books of genealogy, back in the pre-internet era when that was REALLY REALLY tough. But as tough as it was to piece together scattered records across the generations, it was only even possible because she focused on the male lines.
[...]
The point is knowing your male family history and not your female family history sucks ass.
So I appreciate the heck out of the fact that you gamer guys have to deal with your male characters not being memorable in one out of the thousands of games available to you.
[...]

I shortened it a bit, but I feel like you should still get the point.

Anyway, if fathers were added I think the only relations that need to be ingame are husband,father,grandfather. They would get linked together on family tree, as "married to:(name)", and the kids still should "belong" on the mom's side of family tree. And a picked up and named baby still would get surname from the person who named them.

karltown_veteran · 2019-03-02 04:05:10

Amon wrote:

As well as roleplaying being married.

*raises hand* I've done that, many times. In fact just tonight I married my sister and was a father to her kids - well, two of them... the other five were Jeff's kids, when we were on a break.

Full story-- we flirted a little as kids. She wanted sex, so we did it behind a tree. Not much later she had a daughter. She got mad because I wasn't paying for childcare, so after that kid we took a break. I lied to her about some other girl I was seeing so she hooked up with Jeff to get back at me. With Jeff she had four braindead sons that suicided almost instantly, and one who survived, my stepson. A bit later I saved her from mosquitoes and then told her that she should hook back with me if she wanted daughters, because Jeff was only giving her sons. Then we went behind the tree again, and that was our way of making up with each other. A bit later she had her second daughter and died, so I raised the daughter (this does tie back to fathers you guys). Her daughter ended up being the last girl, since my eldest daughter died young. She had grandchildren who I cooed over. I ended up burying my wife/sister with a rose. I also wrote a note about us and hid it behind our bang tree for grandkids to find.

Edit: My lineage http://lineage.onehouronelife.com/serve … id=3653214

Last edited by karltown_veteran (2019-03-02 04:06:50)

Amon · 2019-03-02 10:36:43

antking:]# wrote:

I think that a reason we don't have a lot of fathers is because child hood is so short! 4 min and you become a hard working individual!

Children throughout history were very hardworking. Often kids were born on the fields even. Mothers got some chicken stew and off back to work they went, at least over here and not even THAT long ago. But it doesn't really take away if it's so short roleplaying kids are still devoted to their parents and the parents to their kids and grandkids way into their 50+ You'll have your dotting daughter come to you presenting her firstborn child all glad and happy for example. It's all very pleasant tbf.
I think only the hardcore /must work 24/7/ people would have an issue with people taking breaks for their own shenanigans.

hmrka wrote:

I'd like fathers too but I wouldn't like them in the way you demonstrated. Matrilinear families feel much more natural, because it is the Woman that gives birth. It is her that has to raise her kid, name it, feed it. There is no reason to add "patriarchy" into the game, It would ruin the sense that we are all equal.

I get you, I get you. But I rather hoped the smell of /vindictive for justice/ wouldn't come across on this thread (what you quoted), it's the concept of fatherhood that is interesting and the notion that being Adam should be functionally equal to a woman via popping babies less so.
Of course, there is no need to mess with pure patrilineality, and matrilineality is just as much... not egalitarian. You still need an egg and sperm to make kids, but that's not really a concern here, on who 'naturally owns' the kids, every kid is a product of a sperm and egg and to which parent or lineage it belongs is a human social concept. But if fatherhood is to be instilled, there is the way as how it likely, probably happened in history. By men eventually knowing which children are from their loins (and we return to relative bias and nepotism when men would focus attention solely to their children). And this is still a post-apocalyptic society in rebuilding from scratch. Such a thing would not just get lost.

And the only reason why the line would cut to the father is that it cuts to the mother by default. So there is this duality going on, but also a sort of...link/portal between two/more family trees. As well as the choice of making it happen. Perhaps all of Ana Fletcher's future children would be Baileys now, But maybe Tom died later in and now all of her subsequent children are Fletchers again. Or maybe Ana died and Tom then married Fiona Faulkner. Or maybe Fiona married many men throughout the curse of her lifetime, all ending in premature death. With children scattered all over various family trees. -Honestly, an interesting thing to dwell on just how far you can abuse such a concept.

Naming other's children usually doesn't cut it, for many people, the emotional bond among adoptive children is more important than the tree they see and all those bonds get lost with only the name of children being a visible remnant of it as some other seemingly 'random' person named them.

oh god, karltown_veteran Quite a tale! What cracks me up on the lineage is, I'm so sorry but her stating "Ill name my doughter" cracked me up. And I just imagined a lump of dough shaped like a baby ;(
If I marry I tend to marry in multi lineage towns, which...lately I haven't seen any. I don't play this game for the same old rinse/repeat grind. But for the interactions.

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2019-03-01 19:25:02

A discussion about fathers. Historical interpretation and reflection.

#2 2019-03-01 19:31:38

Re: A discussion about fathers. Historical interpretation and reflection.

#3 2019-03-01 20:37:55

Re: A discussion about fathers. Historical interpretation and reflection.

#4 2019-03-01 20:40:58

Re: A discussion about fathers. Historical interpretation and reflection.

#5 2019-03-01 22:36:12

Re: A discussion about fathers. Historical interpretation and reflection.

#6 2019-03-02 00:27:06

Re: A discussion about fathers. Historical interpretation and reflection.

#7 2019-03-02 00:32:51

Re: A discussion about fathers. Historical interpretation and reflection.

#8 2019-03-02 00:59:28

Re: A discussion about fathers. Historical interpretation and reflection.

#9 2019-03-02 04:05:10

Re: A discussion about fathers. Historical interpretation and reflection.

#10 2019-03-02 10:36:43

Re: A discussion about fathers. Historical interpretation and reflection.

Board footer