teamwork worldbuilding babble

[askerian]

*nerd, nerd, i'm a nerd~*

Trying to work out stuff I wrote in that sidefic I just posted two days ago. (are you getting tired of my worldbuilding posts yet? ff7 and genjutsu and now that... XD)

(note, this is all Teamworkverse-based extrapolation. AFAIK canon isn't shown to have concubines in the first place, and we know about less than zero things about Earth Country's social order anyway. Maybe they do! but, srsly, it's a case of "well, they don't NOT have them either." Like the fox area summoning.)

Plz not to be bringing the current "Kishimoto is sexist!!/no he isn't!!" wank in this post thank you. I'm working with in-universe sexism, not authorial intent.

So Earth Country might allow men to have male concubines, therefore legitimizing male/male relationships somewhat, but even though Fire has zero male/male laws it's still more socially advanced.

This is how:

If we only judge from the male/female ratio in ninja teams, most if not all countries seem to be somewhat sexist to start with, or at least have some gender-based role distribution. Considering 1/3rd of the fighting force is female and a woman is Hokage and old woman Koharu is a hokage's advisor, there is probably less of a glass ceiling in the ninja world at least, but no widespread equality anywhere! But.

Fire Country believes mostly what Japan / Western countries believes about marriage -- that the man might be intended to be the head of the family (and you take it seriously or not seriously as you wish), and it'd be nice if they had and raised children which is more the mom's job than not, but the wife still has a lot of rights, and, say, wife beating is not alright. Perfect equality between men and women is probably a laudable goal but they're still not there yet and there's still something of a "men and women are inherently different" mindset. But in a way... A husband doesn't have the right to prevent his wife from working a job she wants to work, and he doesn't have a right to keep her barefoot and pregnant, and you don't have a passel of male relatives making sure a woman gets married to a suitable guy of their choice -- see Tsunade for example, who really doesn't seem to come from such a mindset, or Inuzuka Tsume, who leads her own ninja clan thank you very much. (Or Anko. I'd like to see Anko being a good little wifey.)

They did evolve from a "marriage is a way to ally two clans or to give a man heirs" mindset, but from what we see today in the behavior of the female ninjas, nowadays unless they have some kind of old tradition to preserve most people marry for love first.

The right to have a concubine in Fire Country was even almost abolished at some point, and the only reason it still exists -- albeit in a very regulated way -- is that they have to strike a balance between their changing views on social justice and what marriage means, and the traditions the old clans who immigrated to Konoha to flee persecution demanded they keep.

In that optic, Fire Country concubine laws are severely restricted. You have to *apply* for them; it's not an automatic right, it's a special dispensation. You have to present your case -- "why I need several women/several heirs, what would be lost if I didn't get them". (Sasuke's excuse, if he did, would be "I need to maximize genetic diversity" by the way. That's the angle people are going with to try to convince him, since he showed zero interest in reaffirming or creating clan alliances.) Of course if you have influence or money you're more likely to get it approved, too. So... civilians probably never do get concubines and consider it a very outdated practice; only daimyos, yakuza and bloodline clans still bother with it, and even then not that often.

And after that, the concubine and children are afforded a solid legal status and a certain amount of money to assure their financial safety. Divorcing a concubine is probably even harder than divorcing a wife, since in the "love=marriage" optic if you took a concubine there had to have been a reason totally unrelated to whether you get along really well with her. Either she would have to be sterile or you'd need to have been betrayed by her clan and therefore you feel that you must officially sever your ties of blood with them.

(in other words it's probably easier to just agree with your wife that having an open marriage is a-okay. ... or just go and cheat on her and get sued for alimony. >__>;)

Also, it's less common, but entirely possible for a man to marry into a clan, or for a woman to lead a clan. Example: Inuzuka Tsume, head of clan, had a husband/lover who gave her two children and then left her, and it doesn't change a thing to her status. Her older child is a woman as well, and it hasn't been stated how the clan head position is passed down (the Inuzuka clan is probably rather relaxed like that) but Hana doesn't seem to be disqualified from the start just for being a girl. Hyuuga Hinata and Hyuuga Hanabi are seen as perfectly valid choices for clan head, so long as they aren't disqualified for unsuitable personality reasons. Teamwork OCs example: the Kagami clan, which at the moment is led by the husband of the deceased female clan leader until her heir (eldest child, a girl) comes of age.


Whereas Earth Country's concubine laws are so "boy concubine or girl concubine, it's all okay" because they're mostly centered on what the husband/master wants and needs, and they only have the rights he chooses to afford them. Concubines are still even now for alliances and/or pleasure and/or social status and/or spare heirs. A man still cannot marry another man, because marriage is about creating his main heir and they don't have Mpreg figured out. (:p) So there's no "Husband & Husband of Equal Status and Influence", it's always "V.Important Husband & Love Toy Concubine."

[So they're not as "a man who sleeps with men is automatically eww" since they have the "keeping teenage pretty boys on the side even though you have three wives" precedent, and so as a whole they lean a little more on "almost everyone is a little bi" (though it's also seen by some to be a high-born perversion/pastime, and the working classes have to be more responsible), but someone who's seen as a boy-whore (as in, someone who really looks/behaves uke) is guaranteed to catch some flak. And a big macho he-man who likes to be dominated and take it up the ass will keep that secret like a real world married minister would hide his many hustler friends.]

Also it's not possible even there to have a woman be the master/husband figure. Wife is a better status than concubine but still not one where you can have concubines of your own. It's the personal choice of the husband to allow his wife to have access to his concubines, but that's a private matter, not a legal one.



... Now I have to figure out a Narutoverse civilization that would naturally have evolved to allow women to have several husbands. It'll probably have to be a rather isolated place, because it would be very divergent from the rest of the narutoverse/teamworkverse and i'm not sure how to avoid social contamination that would pressure that custom into disappearing, but I'd love to write a ficlet for about ten years down the road where Sakura discovers documents talking about that tiny country/island/valley and is immediately LET'S GO ON VACATION about it. It would probably be more of a joke than actual teamwork canon (bit too much of a coincidence and "didn't you already write that one? >__>" otherwise) but it would crack me up. XD

But, what kind of logic would lead them to it? Hrrm. Halp plz?

Comments

[therhoda.livejournal.com]

have you thought of a land where there was a plauge that killed more men than women. SO that the ratio of men to women drops to insane levels. Say 8 women to every man so that for the coutry to survive they have to share. it may be a contest between women to win the man of their choice. So that When Sakura and Naruto get sent there She had to fight off the hordes that want to share Little Naruto genes. Where of course he would get all pervy about and she could beat him down and tell sasuke on him.

[askerian]

XD Hee! That would be really funny, yeah. I'm kind of tempted to write a fic for it -- not teamworkverse, but some other team seven-related plot.

(i was trying to figure out "one woman with many husbands" though. The plague idea won't work for that. Guys would be more tempted to compete over the women instead of sharing if only a few of them could get children.)

[askerian]

... damn it, copypaste ate part of my reply. What I wanted to add was that if there's less men and the women share, it would mean every man gets several women, not the other way around. They'd have a dynamic where women are dominant, but they'd still be expected to have one man/several women family patterns.

[rurounitriv.livejournal.com]

The most likely way I can see that happening is if there was an abnormally high male-to-female ratio (they either share a woman or they don't get the chance to pass down their genetics). In that case, the females would be protected and probably locked away from the world, lest their precious childbearing capability be lost. Now, I can see that happening inside of a clan, but a whole village or kingdom? They would have to be very isolated indeed, and probably horribly inbred because of it.

The other option would be Narutoverse hippies/free love proponents, where the rule is basically "hey, whatever floats your boat." Guys could marry guys, girls could marry girls, you could have as many wives/husbands as you like... really unlikely to hold for long on a national scale, because of human nature, but it could be a situation where King Moonpuppy Has Decreed That All Marriages Shall Be Open and Sakura pounces on it before the ink is dry on the proclamation. XD

[askerian]

Hmm, yeah, I was kinda thinking about the first possibility; it's possible (say, in a small isolated area) but if it exists Sakura is very unlikely to want to support that mindset by getting married there.

The second one is funny. XD Might get a great crackfic out of it. *pokes bunnies*

[book-people.livejournal.com]

Okay, the society would have to be matrilineal-- the wealth is passed down the female line, not the male, by virtue of the fact that women always know who their children are. As a result, marriage may not even be stressed as overly important (it may, actually, be a bit of that social contamination that doesn't quite fit with the customs of the place), and a woman can therefore have two husbands if she so chooses, since she could probably have two lovers if she so chooses.

Societies like that have actually existed, by the way. Some known tribes in Africa are still matrilineal, and many Native American tribes were as well. I believe (it's been a while since I took an anthropology course) that marriage in those cases was a status thing for the man, since his stuff is likely going to be passed down to his sister/daughter.

A minor note: matrilineal societies tend to be more stable than patrilineal societies. There's something about the way they pass down belongings that does not encourage war (maybe because so many wars are fought over who owns what stuff).

/geek

[askerian]

X33333333

Matriarcal society is a go. ♥

[gladdecease]

I'd say another possible option is female-carried bloodlines (a recessive trait requiring a +X and a neutralX to appear/be carried? idk, it's been too long since I had genetics) that require some genetic diversity to disperse among the population. A Sasuke-ish situation, but genderswitched?

Though I don't know how well they'd like Sakura's situation, if that was the case.

[askerian]

ooooOOOHH female-carried bloodlines! Oh genetics. *_________* Shiny shiny ideas.

...yeah, unlikely they'd stretch the allowance for more husbands outside of the people who do carry the bloodline, and since bloodline clans tend to be rather small all things considered... Hrrn.

*makes note* I could have Sakura do research about it anyway! XD

[tephra]

Look into polyandry in Tibet for ideas for your one woman many husbands situation. To generalize from what I read about it years ago, if you have very scarce resources, scarce enough that the survival of a pregnancy is endangered if the woman has to rely on the efforts of only one man to provide for her, it makes sense to have more than one man. Generally in that case the men are brothers, so they aren't working so hard to help along some other family's genetics, and the "rank" of the husbands is by birth order.

Location-wise it would have to be someplace with poor resources that is difficult to get to. A high mountain valley (like Tibet) where getting over the mountains with supplies for a civilization is hampered by very rugged terrain and bad weather for instance. You're also likely to get desert conditions in that valley, the rain shadow from the mountains means that most of the possible rain/snow would be shed on the side of the mountain opposite the valley. With altitude you're not going to have the heat most people associate with deserts but it's going to be very dry in terms of precipitation. Herds of gracing animals would be small, or they would overgraze the valley and die off. There might be some goats or sheep that would wander in from outside, but not many, the grazing is better on the other side of the mountain.

I'd expect herd management to be extremely important, and population control in general for all animals of the valley, including humans. You might want to consider how to remove women from the breeding population since there's a bias in humans for slightly more female births than male to start with. Add in the harsh conditions and your already slightly out numbered menfolk are going to be even more out numbered unless there's something increasing female mortality (deaths in childbirth is an obvious one). Maybe there's a special status/class for women that take on male roles, try poking at Native American societies for that (Google "third gender" or "third sex" and "two spirit" to start).

An island would be a bit more difficult to isolate, if you have technology available for tourism of any sort you also have a way to trade for food. A boat large enough to handle the rough seas or long distances to get people to the island would also be large enough for a cargo of food. Even if it was initially so resource poor that polyandry was required it would have to be experiencing some cultural contamination with the current trade it would have to have with the tourism. Of course if an actual visit by Team 7 is not required you can just have Sakura read about it in some anthropological paper and leave the actual island very distant and difficult to get to with current technology.

So with a mountain valley it's easier to get a few people in and out than a large caravan. With an island it's easier to get a larger ship in than a smaller one.

Dang, I get wordy. ^.^;

[askerian]

... Women who take on male roles is prrrrrt. I knew about Tibet fratries marriage (but since naruto and sasuke aren't blood-related it wasn't really relevant XD), but now i'm trying to figure out how to combine the two of those and prrrrrt. *__*

I think I like the mountain idea better for this situation. Will think on it more. thank you ^^

[mitsuhachi.insanejournal.com (from livejournal.com)]

In Hawaii pre-contact, both women and men could take--if I remember correctly--what were essentially concubines or second spouses of either gender, and there was just a social expectation that everyone would get along and not kick up a fuss. It was considered shameful to fight with your brother-husbands/sister-wives, and all children belonged to all parents. But they were a fairly radically gender-equal and sex-positive culture, and it disappeared rather quickly after contact, with the missionaries. It might be possible to do something, though, where a practice like that remained but was dying out?

Or...wasn't Sasuke going to officially adopt Naruto into the clan? Or am I making things up? Because a lot of places had old rules for fraternal polyandry, to preserve the landholdings/property rights through generations--india, for example, and tibet do this. So if they're legally brothers, they might be able to do that reletively easily, especially in a place like sand where there's not that much arable land anyway.

[askerian]

ooh, I didn't know that about Hawaii. Shiny, shiny~

... I don't remember what I said about Naruto and Sasuke. I might have mentioned it at some point, but currently I lean more toward thinking he could offer, but Naruto likes being an Uzumaki and he doesn't like the idea of Sasuke being his clan head very much, so... I don't know. Hrrm.

[na-no-nai.livejournal.com]

I have nothing even remotely useful to add. I'd just like to say I am loving all the info in this post. *geeks all over it*

[askerian]

XD

♥ I have the best f-list in the world.

[trishalynn.livejournal.com]

Before reading comments, I'm leaning towards a place that had a plague or something like that, a rather hyena-like society.

One thing I've never understood is that in a world without mpreg, why is it male descent of children important when before DNA testing, the only way you could ever know for certain whose child belongs to whom is by watching it come out of the woman as it's being born. Female descent and bloodlines make way more sense to me.

[askerian]

yeah, but that's why men-dominated societies are more about claiming one woman and being so jealous of whether or not another man puts his cock inside their woman, whereas a woman is usually more worried about *emotional* cheating (in the broad generic sense of course, at the individual level there are tons of variations) -- men can't be sure who even put the kid in there, so in a way it's logical that they have to be more controlling, because the risk of wasting years and huge resources raising some other man's child without even knowing is much higher. There's very little risk of a woman raising some other woman's child without knowing -- first you'd have to have another kid of the appropriate age to swap them at birth. If a man really wants to assure his genetic future he's got to either be possessive and controlling, or knock up a lot of women, or even both.

So... Patriarchal societies are so concerned with *owning* women because that's the only way they can have a modicum of influence on who the child comes from. (at least that's what I heard, and it makes a ton of sense to me. XD)

[lyarrah.livejournal.com]

So much love for you and your over-thought. TemaShika does a lot of over-thought about country alliances and such, so I'm used to trying to dig at least a little bit... But you've really thought about it all XDDD This is epic.

(Maybe pick some sort of country that has a stereotypical Amazon mentality? "Woman are rulers. Men are toys." They'd be less socially forward, but still be what Sakura was looking for, technically. Also, maybe Sasuke can strike a deal with someone... "I'll go knock up a couple random bitches if you'll let me keep my fucking husband". I doubt Tsunade would really mind; if anything, she'd love to stick it to the council.

Also, love your comment above me about owning women. So true.

[askerian]

Oh, yeah, temashika issues. *__* I know people tend to worry a bit more about the alliance and being from potentially enemy villages, but seeing how Naruto and Gaara are, I'm more tempted to ponder about culture clashes. Have you seen discussions about that? I'll have to figure stuff out soonish, still writing that Suna sidefic... >_____>

(I wonder if the siblings all have the same mom, what with there being a brunet, a blond and a redhead in the lot. Maybe Gaara's hair is a result of Shuukaku influence. Does temari look like her mom, I wonder. What color is their father's eyes? *flailflail* @__@)

Someone will indeed suggest it in teamwork, but I'm not sure Sasuke will agree to father children with women he doesn't really know, children he wouldn't be able to take in and raise. Considering how he is about his family, it seems doubtful he'd not want to get them as close as possible, even if he did have random women forced on him. He'd tolerate the moms if it meant he could be around his kids.

Could make for a good story in some other naruto 'verse though. Sasuke dealing with his harem. HMM.

... DAMN IT i'm getting bunnies. DX He'd start out being locked up and not being trusted and they'd ask him for some semen and then there would be tons of political maneuvering and alliances and stuff as he little by little convinces people if he had family in konoha then he wouldn't go anywhere and then he ends up with this harem of women he doesn't know very much and he's never really going to be close to and a ton of kids and learning to be a clan head and a father and dealing with his kind of weirded out peers and his "if you must, we'll be here .__." teammates and and and AHHH.

*shakes fist at you*

[kittychan1986.livejournal.com]

What about something like Snow Country? Cold, hard winters and high Male Killed rate might lead to a woman taking more than one husband at a time to assure that her children are protected and there's food on the table. Harder climates have a tendency to knock off men pretty fast, where as the women who don't do the hunting are at home. It wouldn't make sense for one man to have many wives when a wrong stab at a bear could have him losing his head at any time. Or some sort of Amazon like tribe, where a woman would be able to keep as many guys as she likes. :)

Also, I so seriously heart your world buildings.

[askerian]

If there's less men, then it's women who will be expected to share the men, AND they'll be more likely to raise their children in a community with other women so that even when daddy is out for ten days in a row hunting boar in the forest they still have another adult or three around to corral the kids (and lesbianism might even be secretly encouraged) so they'll be less likely to get sanguine about sharing the men. ;p

I'll think more on the amazon topic though. XD Notsure how to adapt them to the narutoverse, but i'm sure it can be done.

[freed-wings.livejournal.com]

Sounds a bit like Ancient Greece. Back then, ,en were allowed to have male lovers outside of their marriage so long as the man was much younger and less powerful, and one dude was set in the position of “man” while the other had to play “woman”. They could also go to brothels and see prostitutes. The word "adultery" actually only means a woman having sex outside of a marriage, so a woman could get punished for having sex with a man other than her husband even if she was raped. Rape within marriage was pretty much legal, too. Lesbianism was considered masculine and was largely discouraged (Sappho and all of her friends on the island of Lesbos were sort of exceptions, lucky women).

As far as I know, the legends of the cannibalistic Amazon tribes never really included polygamy. They were more of cautionary classical tales about why you don’t let women rule. However, wealthy women have had castrated male servants who have occasionally played the role of concubines in European history. The practical examples of castrated servants were house servants in the Roman Empire (sorry suckers… and they say the Romans treated their slaves humanely) and young boys who sung in quires and risked losing their voices as they matured, but there are hints of more sexual uses. Certainly Europe was notorious for court scandal after the Enlightenment, but there wasn’t really a title for “official on-the-side lover of a noble woman.” Even kings didn’t really keep official concubines, with a few arguable exceptions in France.

Probably the reason women haven’t openly had many lovers is because if a bunch of guys try to get a girl pregnant, nobody knows who the kid’s father is. For a lot of cultures, this is a problem. When one man knocks up a bunch of women, every kid knows exactly who their father and mother are. Plus, while a woman only has one uterus vacant at any given time, a man can get a whole bunch of women pregnant all at once. …Duh. It’s pretty cool how scientists are using this to get rid of all those cane toads in Australia, though. They’re genetically modifying a few frogs to only be able to father male children, and those froglettes will only be able to father male children, and on and on like that until pretty much all the frogs are male.

[askerian]

yeah, I was thinking about greece and also japanese shudo -- samurai had the same system of older man/beautiful young man mentorship that includes sex, too.

... Castrated men, ahahaha. XD
"so the blond hunk is snipped, eh? a shame."
"WHAT? NO I'M NOT DDDD:"
"... he's not? So then the pretty one -- i thought you said he was your husband, but he DOES look a bit..."
"Don't. Say. It."


As for the frogs, in a way it's very cool but in another way... unless there's securities in place, it's going to completely annihilate the whole species. wtf why no. o_o

[fateofshadow.livejournal.com]

To carry on with the Tibet/Snow Country idea:

In harsher climates, especially with difficult pregnancies that are due to outside factors (the cold, not getting enough to eat, etc) there is a slightly higher chance of the child being born female as this is the foetus's standard developmental stage before boy bits start growing. Girls have a better survival rate than boys due to body fat distribution along with a few other factors I can't remember for the earlier stages of infancy/childhood- teenage years would be covered by our superior skelleton... Hmm, there's also the fact that men tend to be the hunters and women are the gathers/child-rearers in a tribe/group/clan, meaning that there are fewer stress related illnesses or physical/athletic injuries. Or you know, man flu. ^_^

Anyway, what if this rather small percentage of heightened stress-related female births was exasperated over the generations- making an environmental factor a genetic one as this factor was bred into the female population? That coupled with a perhaps already established matriarchal society (with a clan leader having men running after her to gather/hunt in the cold) only makes a Woman=Leader and Man=Retainer society structure stronger as more than merely the matriarchal leader claims several husbands or concubines.

I hope that made sense... hmm, I wanna go to Snow country now... >_______>;

[askerian]

*__*

Well, for the factor to become genetic it would take a LOT of generations in isolation, and I'm not sure that would work easily... But I could see a society where women are leaders and males are retainers. It would be kind of awesome actually. *____*

[sarolynne.livejournal.com]

Question! In Earth Country, it's very important husband, sex toy concubine(why may be male or female). Does that mean that they have a model of big, manly real man can put his penis in anything, as long as he's the one putting his penis in? Ergo, penetration = power, status, manly man masculine conformity (maybe even more so with another man because that means you're so manly you turn men of less manly status into "women")? Or would a powerful, important, full of status and honor man who quietly needs to be pounded in the ass still be the V. Important Master?

[askerian]

A powerful, important, full of status and honor man who quietly needs to be pounded in the ass would still be the V. Important Master officially, but if his preferences slip out there will be a lot of rumors and slander whispered all around him.

And yes to the so powerful you can use other men like you use women thing. XD

[nemi-chan.livejournal.com]

Wen Spencer wrote a book "Brother's Price," which was... You know what, I don't remember if there was polyandry or not. There was female dominated polygyny but... Meh I'm not sure so I'll shut up.

[askerian]

Female dominated polygyny still sounds interesting, I'll have to research that book. Thank you ^___^

[demonomen.livejournal.com]

Going off the whole 'chakra = heavily influences genetics/evolution' possibly this desolate place could be in a never ending war? Or had been? Some study out there shows that more males are born in times of war. And with ninjas being warriors in general, shouldn't that mean something?

Maybe that's why there's a 2 boys and 1 girl team style, not because of sexism, but because those populace with ninja genetics doesn't have Enough girls, due to this male producing gene? :D

[severedscythe.livejournal.com]

*Glees the fuck over ALL of this*

[askerian]

Nnnnghyes me too. X333 *loves on f-list*

[elrond-rambles.livejournal.com]

Been thinking far too much about this. But here is what I have:

What if you had a country that had developed a tradition of three-partner marriage regardless of gender? So, we think of marriage as being between two people, but this country thinks of it as being between three people. So instead of pairs, you have three-people nuclei: reminiscent of the three-person Ninja team.

This would make marginally more sense if the country was a very small, but very dedicated Ninja country, where Ninja is more of a family tradition way of life than a government thing. This would allow the… um… triples, to continue to work as ninjas while at the same time raising a family: one person can go off on a mission while two people stay home with the kids, or vice versa if the kids are older.

On a more morbid note, it would also make sense because of the high death-rate for ninjas; with three parents, children are less likely to be orphaned.

Note, however, that gender is not defined here: you can have F/M/For M/F/M or F/F/M or M/M/F or M/M/M or F/F/F or… whatever. Though I think triples with both sexes would be more common.

So in essence, this culture would be doing basically what Team Seven is trying to do, they just figured it out a long time ago.

And… yeah. I need sleep now.

[askerian]

It would be really interesting... and actually I could see it evolve from Konoha's own three man teams, some 500 years in the future. *__* Would be a bit too convenient to bring into the teamwork plot, but as an AU it would be so, so shiny. *__*

[uminohikari.livejournal.com]

A note on the female carried bloodline comment? If the gene is passed through the X chromosome, it's more likely that a male will get it, dominant or recessive ^^; Even if a female inherits two of the bloodline genes, the human body automatically 'turns off' one of the X chromosomes randomly, so she wouldn't be any more powerful.

However! Mitochondria, the energy producing part of the cell, is passed down purely by the mother. Now, if the bloodline is passed via mitochondria, ONLY females will be able to pass down the trait; males could get it, but it would stop with them.

...I uh, am studying for my biology exam...

[askerian]

*____________* ♥ nnngh.


Ahh, I was always confused about mitochondria. What does it refer to, really? MYSTERIOUSSS~

[cerise-anouk.livejournal.com]

what if it's a country that was invaded during a war some decades ago while most of the shinobi (majority male) were away on the front lines and left their women back in the village mosly undefended because of bad info that the enemy was too far out to attack it at that time and so while they were away the village was attacked and many women were either killed or taken as slaves and when the war ended (in favor of the women snatchers) the recovering nation was left with say, a four to one male-female ratio. Their Kage, in the best interest of continuing on the blood of his shinobi and repopulating the nation while ensuring the nation's women would not be considered or used as breeding mechines, made the Multiple Husband Law where it was the lady's choice of who she married as long as it was more than one. The only catch to the law would be that the wife would have to produce the first child within a year of the nuptuals, which, in your threesomes case, would not be a problem since Sakura is already prego. while it has been some time since the war, many familys still follow the multiple husband law even though it is no longer manditory now that the population is at a more acceptable level, and seeing as many women took on as many as five or six husbands while some stuck with the more conservative number of three, it became morally acceptable for the husbands to pleasure eachother while the wife was pregnant or trying to give birth to a specific husband's offspring so the nation is open to the idea of gay men as long as there also happens to be a wife that they share. (just gay men haven't yet been okayed, since, hey, they cant make babies with eachother) the marriage can not be ended because, as stated, the whole point was to continue on the race so divorce is out of the question so Konoha can't order them to annul it.

...

[vhasbls.livejournal.com]

Er, I'm pretty sure this subject is closed, but whatever.

One thing that may work: genetic -um- degradation? There is obviously not an actual word for what I propose. Say that these people live in an extremely isolated area because it is dangerous to live there. ie: radiation, lead in the water, mercury, or some other thing. Obviously you would come up with something that worked in your world.

The end result of this could be interesting, I think, though hardly mushy-feeling inspiring. Not everybody is genetically viable, or not everybody create viable offspring together, but current technology precludes actually figuring out who these people are.

Hence a society where a woman, once proved fertile, has bunches of husbands. This society could even become matriarchal organically, for the already stated reason of offspring only sure of mother's identity, houses formed around the one matriarch, husbands often out hunting, gathering, etc. as environment is hostile.

Of course, this would almost certainly lead to girls becoming pregnant very young, and might even lead to possible severe exploitation (completely opposite result) but if circumstances were dire, it wouldn't work to have one guy hoarding all the fertile women. The society would die out/be severely inbred within just a few generations. Additionally, the number of husbands could be akin to a status symbol, etc. etc. ad nauseum.

As for the women/men without husbands/wives, ie: people proved infertile, they would probably do the bulk of the dangerous shit. But they might also end up having to follow much less stringent societal rules. There could be room here for females who take male roles (as mentioned above) and relationships purely for the sake of relationships that may or may not follow societal norms. Additionally, you could have guys taking on female roles without having to necessarily cut their nads off.

Anyways, why would someone live in such an environment? There are ninja wars, and that's fucking dangerous. They could have been driven there or decided to live there, even, ages ago. Or perhaps it was some disaster that ended up making the place that way. Anyways, nobody wants the land, so though they have to deal with these issues, they are actually mostly safe from ninja-related fallout.

For this society to be stable, it would have to have been around for a while, so you could almost have a population in the process of recovering from some sort of gigantic disaster, and coming back from the edge of annihilation. Hence, huge emphasis on genetic diversity, another reason for female-with-many-husbands as opposed to the opposite.

My own personal squee over this setup is that it could lead to weird genetic hiccups re:bloodlines. Anyways, that would be my suggestion. Sakura getting married to both guys there would be completely acceptable (er, to them). Additionally their circumstances pive a reason for Sakura to be there. And maybe even Sasuke. Hell, considering that there may be places dangerous to most peoples' health, Naruto may even have a reason to be there.

Re: ...

[vhasbls.livejournal.com]

^"give a reason for Sakura to be there." God, I suck.

Um, in addition to my previous comment, I could say that these people would probably live in small groups/tribes, as (I say again) hostile environment only supports small settlements.

There could be alot of movement of population between tribes within marriages, re: genetic variation as a factor. The number of "families" in a tribe could be another mark of status, and even a reason for any tribe to want to marry team 7. Honorary family to give the tribe/village/group points.

Additionally, generally inhospitable environment combined with undesirability of land and reclusive inhabitants could conceivably lead to Konoha not knowing the specifics of lifestyle there. The ninjas don't give a shit about the place, they only know bits and pieces, not enough to form a complete picture. Thus, they send team 7 in without realizing what exactly they are sending them into

[Am New at LJ, but...] Lookit who I found! XD

[flourite-roses.livejournal.com]

This is some rather mind boggling stuff (mama, my brain hurts), but what you said so far seems to have no notable fallacy, i think. o.o And your literature must have ROCKED!!

(Okay, bull-shitting starts now.)

It's possible that a more socially advanced country might not have male/male laws, simply because they are stronger.

If I'm not wrong, my feel of Narutoverse's general setting is like villages tucked away from general population (current era). TVs and instant noodles exist, but they're mostly for convienience, especially the latter on missions. This shows that Fire is probably more technologically advanced, and they are thinking about how best to survive, as a country/people/village?, and ensuring they produce strong kids to continue the line, diversify it, whatever. So abolishing same-sex marriage can be a good thing because then generally it would be considered more towards pro creation, and knowing ninja fatality rates, it's probably more reasonable to them.

Earth, from what you've said, seems to be less technologically advanced, and they might be considered like a 'Third World Country'? (maybe not that bad. >.<) Pre-packed food is probably more important in missions, but I'm guessing its people might not have the luxuries of TV sets in normal houses. Less technologically advanced can mean weaker country as well, and there might be more kunoichi from Earth that rely heavily on seduction in their methods, maybe because they don't have strong enough people to challenge other strong ninjas.

In this case, learning how to seduce both men and women might be the reason for most people in the country to lean towards a less restricted view on love relationships, while Fire, which has always had pretty strong ninjas, might not rely on seduction and underhand tactics, but rather on strength to succeed in a mission.

Well... I guess what I'm trying to get across, in the end, is just that Earth=weaker, therefore trains kunoichi= less power, more cunning. Spies have to seduce, weedle information out of targets. Curvier path, (sexual preferences) more likely to diverge. Fire=stronger, wants more strong kids to continue skills, powers, strength in bloodline, therefore more straightforward; less curved path, straighter road (and way of thinking, sex to procreate).

Sorry, I'm a messy thinker...

P.S. Am UpperClassK9 from dA... Hence the weird title. ^^

[flourite-roses.livejournal.com]

And I realised I didn't answer you question. At all. Period. Sigh...

Well, I presume you're thinking about Sakura with Naruto and Sasuke thing?

Maybe it doesn't have to be the custom, or tradition, but it could be like the exception to the rule thing? Generally, though, i would have said that if the woman was insanely smart or strong, logically speaking she would have pretty good genes, and that's why everyone wants to get into her pants/skirt.

However, in Sakura's case, it might be a problem to figure something like that out. =.= She comes from a pretty normal family and is pretty average (sadly). So... >taps finger< (random thought) Maybe you can just give some nonsense about how Sakura made some pledge with Naruto when they were young to marry, and now she's having Sasuke's kid, so he's obliged to marry her, and Naruto and Sasuke both don't wanna give her up so they're both tied to her somehow?? And since they're both sorta obliged to, they just marry her? I see it as a lot more possible than Fire allowing male concubines, sorry...

Or if Naruto were from Sasuke's clan and vice-versa, I'll have a perfect reason! XD "Our family's young sirs are known for having a very active libido, therefore we need to get them a male toy boy on top of a wife." XDDD

[emeraldgaze.livejournal.com]

Since it's really been a while since you posted this I'm not sure if you've figured it all out but I think I've come up with some things.
For one, say the last remaining member of a clan was female then she'd need multiple men for genetic diversity. Now know that that may not apply to Sakura as far as the law's concerned so theres still a flaw there.

As for your idea about Sakura randomly finding something about some island where all this can be worked out, I have a slightly more logical approch to that. Let's say that Sakura is trying to find some way to incude Naruto in her and Sasuke's wedding so she decided to look up any potential "clan" traditions Naruto's family may have had if there actully is a caln (cuz as far as she knows he doesn't have one but she wants to at least tried). And she finds out everything about the whole conection between Uzumakis and konoha.

A way to use this, though Naruto probably wont like it, is if sasuke becomes Hokage and because the jinchuriki always marries the hokage Naruto would be married to him to continue the tradition and so they can still have children Sasuke also marries Sakura.