There are many ways to tell a story or write a novel, and some writers use the same “methodology” for every book, while others explore different ways, one of which is to
write in a different culture.

This isn’t as easy as it seems. All too often attempts to depict a differing culture do little more change the names, but different cultures have different mores and different structures of relationships.

More than once recently, readers have criticized how I’ve depicted relationships, because what I’ve written doesn’t reflect either what they’ve experienced or feel they want to experience. Such criticisms are accurate in that I’m not depicting what happens today, especially in the United States. For most of human history and in most cultures, relationships have been formalized into almost fixed patterns, at least involving interactions that are seen publicly or that can be inferred publicly.

Every viable society/culture has rules and patterns, and those rules and patterns extend into and influence the most personal and seemingly private aspects of life. For example, certain Polynesian cultures allowed far more sexual freedom, both for men and women, and, as a result, inheritances, etc., flowed through the female lineage.

Private property requires legalities and the backing of power. How those legalities are written and enforced influence culture and personal choices. Economics and technology (or the lack thereof) resulted in comparative past values far different from what we experience today. In Anglo-Saxon England, a mason might make five pence a day, a carpenter four pence, and while a cottage could be rented for sixty pence a year, a simple velvet cloak could cost over ten pounds (and at 240 pence to the pound, its cost represented over two years’ earnings for a skilled tradesman).

Clothes literally were worth their weight in silver or gold, and theft of them could result in harsh punishment, even death.

While people did “fall in love,” love was usually secondary to property and status. Contemporary readers often fail to understand just how strong those rules and customs could be, and how risky any relationship outside of marriage could be. When a young woman was “ruined,” the results could destroy her future, if not any hope of a decent life in the future, and might even cripple the position of her family.

In the current Recluce “sub-series,” Alyiakal and Seliora have a painstakingly long courtship, not because they’re reserved, but because any serious misstep could destroy all they’ve personally accomplished. They couldn’t be even as close as they are without greater repercussions if Seliora were trying to build a factorage in a larger town or a city. And of course, as Seliora becomes more well-off and powerful, she can quietly let her relationship with Alyiakal become known, but even that acceptance occurs within unspoken rules.

The movie The Age of Innocence shows accurately just how binding unspoken rules were in New York during the gilded age. And all societies and cultures have unspoken rules, perhaps better described as unwritten rules, often with high costs for breaking them. Most writers understand that. What is less often mentioned or understood is the cost to society of not having unspoken and binding rules.

Societies cannot long survive without order. How order is maintained determines the nature of a society. Greater reliance on uncodified rules often means that the laws are few and harsh, because smaller infractions are handled on a “personal” basis. It’s hardly a coincidence that laws have multiplied in the United States as unspoken rules and conventions have been ignored or willfully disregarded.