Nod.

...administered by a priest of a permitted church (empowered, or a lay priest of an organized church)...

"Would this do? Any man can call himself a lay priest if his church has no formal organization. The purpose is merely that it should be a respected man whose word is vouched for by something greater than himself."

"Yes, that's fine, it's just if I go home and I'm popping all over the village watering every cow, sheep, and goat for miles around I want to be able to designate somebody else to do the weddings."

"I'm not sure what this actually requires that women do, can you say what you mean by 'loyal'? Also, I think we should say that the court has to have the divorce cases judged by a man and a woman judge, if it's just a man or just a woman they might not understand everything they need to know to be fair."

"Most significantly that means to not sleep with other men, especially not in such a way as to produce children whose father could not be assured to be her husband. Many other things which create the appearance that she might be doing so, or considering it, are also considered disloyal to a lesser degree, depending on which country you ask, and higher classes typically have stricter standards than lower and city more than country. I would not be surprised if Menador or the Hellcoast had significantly different notions of what was unacceptable disloyalty before the death of Aroden; I have definitely heard Galt and Andoran differed in some ways before independence."

"I see two problems, here. First, clarifying that. A culture may have a flexible notion of disloyalty but the law should not. And two, we do not have civil courts or any civil law in effect. Andoran and Galt have perfectly functional codes of civil law and we may elsewhere decide to import one of them wholesale or with modifications but at present we have none."

....it's not bad. It's not amazing, either, but a requirement that men continue providing for any of their wife's children even after divorce is pretty good, on the national crisis front, and if the merchant wrote it it might have a chance.

"Actually bearing another man's children. It's symmetrical with making siring bastards a fine offense, sort of, and avoids having to legally define all sexual activity. I say we make the default obligations fairly narrow, and then allow people to make additional written promises by mutual consent, which can also be legally binding."

"Assessing paternity is difficult. An oath under truth magic that the lady in question is absolutely sure that a child is her husband's, at his expense if the answer is yes, would, I think, suffice. In cities that seems eminently practical; in small towns and villages perhaps not, but in villages I understand traditional marriage is stronger and the need for legal recourse rather than social is weaker."

"I had understood the lack of civil courts to be a temporary emergency measure. Do you believe, then, Your Grace, that they will not be reconvened until and unless this convention calls for them to be?"

"I think the lack of civil courts is an emergency measure in that we do not presently have a code of civil law of any kind. Evidently the Queen does not like the Code Cyprian enough to implement it on a temporary basis, and choosing any other code of civil law is not a priority for an emergency, and so we have nothing. A complete constitution will change that, and provide enough of a skeleton on which to build a civil code. But if we do not write a law that creates civil courts, or a constitution that provides for Her Majesty to create civil courts, then I think first we will be warned that we very much ought to, and if we do not heed that warning I think there will not be civil courts. Unless Her Majesty decides that democracy has failed her, which under those circumstances even as a supporter of Andoran and its principles I would concur that it, and we, had."

"Well. That... seems like an urgent matter, but one perhaps beyond the scope of this committee. I will raise it in the Trade Committee when next it meets, I believe. In the meantime... perhaps we can say that urgent cases of abandonment can be brought to a criminal court judge, until the civil courts are back in session?"

Victòria is not entirely sure what the difference is between civil law and regular law but she's pretty sure that if she asks the nobles are going to use it as an excuse to say that she doesn't know anything about how the laws should be. Maybe she can ask Lluïsa this evening.

Korva maybe thirty percent knows what a civil court is. It's the court where you didn't actually commit any crimes, so they mostly indenture you instead of mostly executing you.

"I don't actually think we need to rush it. No existing marriages were entered into under this system, so it probably shouldn't apply to any of them until the people involved make these specific promises."