My marriage was arranged. That’s the way things were done then: where there were weddings, there were arrangements. I don’t mean such things as bridal outfits, flowers, banquets, and music, though we had those too. Everyone has those, even now.

The arrangements I mean were more devious than that.

Under the old rules only important people had marriages, because only important people had inheritances. All the rest was just copulation of various kinds rapes or seductions, love affairs or one-night stands, with gods who said they were shepherds or shepherds who said they were gods.

Occasionally a goddess might get mixed up in it too, dabble around in perishable flesh like a queen playing at milkmaids, but the reward for the man was a shortened life and often a violent death.

Immortality and mortality didn’t mix well: it was fire and mud, only the fire always won.

The gods were never averse to making a mess. In fact they enjoyed it. To watch some mortal with his or her eyes frying in their sockets through an overdose of god-sex made them shake with laughter.

There was something childish about the gods, in a nasty way. I can say this now because I no longer have a body, I’m beyond that kind of suffering, and the gods aren’t listening anyway. As far as I can tell they’ve gone to sleep. In your world, you don’t get visitations from the gods the way people used to unless you’re on drugs.

Where was I? Oh yes. Marriages. Marriages were for having children, and children were not toys and pets. Children were vehicles for passing things along. These things could be kingdoms, rich wedding gifts, stories, grudges, blood feuds.

Through children, alliances were forged; through children, wrongs were avenged. To have a child was to set loose a force in the world.