"The right not to be abandoned seems to aim at solving the same problem, and seems wiser, though I should like more clarity on what counts as abandonment."

"I think that one was Delegate Tallandria's idea initially, what were you thinking there?"

AAAA

"- uh, I think when I suggested it I specifically flagged it as something that I wasn't sure the government could actually do anything about, or that necessarily made sense to handle as a right. But - a majority of children in Egorian don't have fathers, or barely do. Maybe one in ten don't have mothers, either. The orphanages are in a state of near crisis, worse than they were under the Asmodeans, for lack of funding." And lack of realistic expectations, but. "I think it's very tempting to blame this on the mothers, since mothers are the ones to take the final step in abandoning a child, and I think a lot of people are doing that, assuming that the problem is located in women's laziness. But all of those children were abandoned by their fathers, first, in much greater numbers. It seems to me that the biggest concern that Cheliax has, on the family front, is finding a way to make men support and raise their own children."

"I don't know what a good system for that is. If I thought we could do anything I'd probably make it illegal to sire bastards at all. But this seems - very unlikely to get past the floor."

"I think probably it wouldn't have helped anything if my father had been made to marry my mother? But I guess I don't know for sure."

"Well, ideally, having to experience consequences prevents some number of terrible decisions in the first place, and people hold off until they find someone they want to have a household with. But - yeah. I don't know how to legislate men not being awful."

"A flat fine. Paid to the mother, with her choice to accept the money or the man's proposal, if he chooses to offer it. If he cannot pay, indenture him, and the mother receives the money paid by the man who buys his contract. If he can, the man's life is not overly disturbed, but the woman is compensated. I doubt this passes the floor, but I would vote for it, with certain details."

- what???

"I think he was a wizard student? I assume that specific situation isn't going to really come up anymore but I don't think that plan would work well for men who don't have the money and do have some other reason where they're already committed to something else in a way where you can't easily say 'go be indentured instead.'"

Shrug. "A wizard student is employed by the government, and can be very easily obliged to work for longer, in addition to the work needed to pay off his existing debts. The more difficult case is a man who is already married and supporting other children. I don't see a comfortable solution that lowers the number of abandoned children on five moments of thought."

"Of course, this system gives women more reason to bear bastards, especially if not coupled with any prohibition on smothering the children when they exist. And the whole thing is effectively offering a woman the option between payment or mere forgiveness with no compensation, unless and until the government regains an opinion on what it means to marry someone in the first place, or any limits on divorce immediately afterward."

"Lashes with a simple whip*, at the request of the mother? If she is appeased by gifts, she can decline to request it, and we need not set a specific fine. Shame and a little pain are good encouragements toward reformation, and discouragements from erring in the first place."

This favors noblemen who have the strength of adventurers, but he didn't specify the number of lashes and can fix that if he's called on it.

*i.e. not a barbed whip or cat-o-tails that can maim if it hits right/wrong

"That system seems very... personally adversarial."

"...I think the two of you might be solving different problems?" Or the evil titled Hellspawn is messing things up on purpose, that's always a possibility. "Lashing the father is a good solution if you're trying to get him back for hurting the mother, and having him marry her or pay her isn't, since marrying her isn't really a punishment necessarily and the money would hurt him way less if he's rich. But it's a bad solution if you're just trying to figure out what to do for the child, which I think is what Delegate Napaciza is getting at?"

"A fine does both. It provides very little reason for the nobility to change their ways, but you will not, realistically, convince the nobles to give up having mistresses. Requiring that they provide some compensation to all the women who bear their children is a more plausible improvement. But for men of ordinary means, a fine is painful - more painful than being whipped, in many respects - and both encourages responsibility and compensates the mother and child."

"Ideally, we would find a way to discourage irresponsibility, encourage actual fatherhood, and provide something for children born under circumstances where the father's further involvement would only make things worse. But these may cut in different directions."

"You could make it a - tax benefit of some kind, being married."

"I think — it kind of sounds like you're assuming marriage is usually always good? And I don't really think that's true."

"It's possible to do any good thing wrong. But even a bad marriage is better than kids starving."

Victòria is not at all sure that this is true. "I think bad marriages are usually worse for the woman than the man." 

"I'd believe it. So? A toddler can't go out and get himself a job."

"—well, if a man's the type to beat his wife and children senseless for disrespecting him, I don't think they're better off for having him there."

"Would you marry a man like that for a tax benefit?"

"...not on purpose? I think I'm maybe losing track of all the different ideas people have suggested."

"Then we'd need divorce, which as my wife has insisted to me-" She nods firmly from her seat taking notes. "-we certainly need in some form anyway."

"Bad marriages are very bad, and wives need some way of escaping them," she says, "Osirion is good for the children in every way we could ask for but that, and I am not at all sure it is worth it even if we can't do better."

Soler clicks his tongue. "It's normal to have some arguments, spots where it's not smooth. And I know that's not what you mean, but some young lady who's been married only the once, does she know that's not what you mean? Does she know whether she's got a case of something you work through and not something you drop everything and damn the consequences?"

"I trust this committee to develop a reasonable notion. One of the versions of that right suggested was 'if a priest hears the dispute and judges it allowed'. I have heard Erastil has chosen many men this year, and that Pharasma has many midwives as well."