Family and Households

The traditional Perrenland household is an extended family living in a large house or a cluster of houses. The origins of many stadts (settlements) were as a single extended family's dwellings, and there are still many farmsteads and hamlets where that is the case today. Conversely, the origins of many tribes and sub-clans were as a single extended family - in many ways, the modern clans are the epitome of the extended Perrenese family.

Traditional households are the most common family arrangement found throughout Perrenland, particularly in rural communities, but have been gradually declining as Perrenland's population grows and members of the extended family move elsewhere in search of work, land, or other opportunities. Typically, the oldest person in the oldest generation in the household is the head of a traditional family.
Smaller households composed of a single set of parents and their children are also common throughout Perrenland, and tend to predominate in the major urban centres, particularly the highly cosmopolitan city of Schwartzenbruin. Typically, these smaller families do not have a recognised head of the family - for them, the head of the family may be an older relative living elsewhere in Perrenland, perhaps at the extended family's home.
Finally, there are also single individuals who have set out to make their own fortune by hiring on as additional hands at a farm, as an apprentice with a trading guild member, or by taking their chances on the seedy streets of the towns and cities. Most live in boarding houses or as lodgers with established households.

The core of any family are the women, as Perrenders trace their heritage through the female line. This is because, magic notwithstanding, it is easier to identify someone's mother than their father. The general expectation is that the parentage of an individual will be known and that a child will be born to a recognised couple. However, being worldly, earthy sorts, the Perrenese are pragmatic about such matters and no stigma is attached to bastardry. Indeed the phenomenon of 'children of the Auszug', caused by healthy young folk of both sexes signing up for the army and intermingling regularly, is well known.

Where a mother does know the identity of a father and refuses to acknowledge that person, there is usually some concern in the community. Perrenders value loyalty and duty and denying someone that 'right' can be seen as a grave insult. Most Perrenders will assume that a man wants to meet his responsibilities and few will admit such when it is not the case. That said, there is no law which dictates that either men or women must acknowledge and take responsibility for their children. It is, however, an unwritten law that the clan or community will 'take up the slack' if someone cannot or will not do their duty by their offspring. Abandoned children in Perrenland are rare indeed.

By default, a child is assumed to belong to the mother's family and clan. However, a child can belong to the father's family and clan instead if the head of the family and the clan accept the child and the mother swears that she has no objections.

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