"Not at all. - of a married woman it'd be an insult to her husband, of course. But if she's single? It doesn't land any differently than saying it of a man."

"That's true in my experience as well. Even the Andorens take it more seriously than the holdovers, upper class or low."

"The project of civilization is ordering men's obligations so that everyone behaves virtuously, stands when they must stand, fights when they must fight, and raises the next generation strong, healthy, and themselves capable of the defense of civilization. It is an allegation of defecting on that project. Acts says that men do not reason in these terms, but they are written on their hearts; the law just adds up to what everyone was doing anyway by habit because the civilizations where they did not do it were destroyed.

...the reason same-sex liaisons are treated differently than liaisons with men where the women are wizards, even though neither of those things produce children, is because one of those changes the incentives around marriage in the undesirable direction and one in the desirable direction."

That's incredibly annoying but at least it has moving parts.

"Even putting aside concerns about the social fabric, I worry that if we attempt to spread the message that it's not necessarily Evil for unmarried wizards to have sex, people will misinterpret us as meaning that it's not Evil for a wizard to kill their ensouled unborn child."

That's Evil? Seriously????

"I don't deny that that's a good and stable way to order a society, and one which works in Lastwall and probably Arodenite Cheliax. I'm not sure it's one we can reach from where we are. If we tell women of Cheliax to call harlotry a cardinal sin, well, firstly most of them won't really believe us or internalize any of that reasoning, and I'm not certain it's salutary without, but secondly it will be used as they're used to using insults and accusations - like heresy or disloyalty, weapons which can be wielded against almost anyone and whose truth or falsehood barely matters."

Joan-Pau is visibly slightly moved by the triumphial defense of civilization!

Oh nooooo, hot boy has principles and Eulàlia is going to have a very hard time getting him to sleep with her!

"If it were in my power to keep the people of Cheliax from facing Pharasma's judgment in their current state, I'd do it. But as we cannot do that I do not think it is a kindness to try to spare them the judgment of their peers. Treating infanticide as murder but not shaming fornication is mostly a wrong to people who are very bad at being moved by the long-term consequences of their actions."

Actually the two facts that Eulalia raises are both true but totally unrelated "This makes me wonder if it's worth paying the capital costs of a room with a Zone of Truth Hallow attached, cast by Inquisitor Shawil if we can afford his price, used for judicial cases and rented out for other purposes. It's not perfect, but it would make the costs of our judicial system much lower and efficiency much higher in the major cities, and if it works in Westcrown we can replicate it elsewhere."

Well you can't say "I worry that would create a perpetual scene of accusations people would feel dishonored to have to refute, as we saw earlier today" when the Countess de Seguer who threw a fair few logs onto that fire is right there.

"It does seem like it might be constructive for the perception that the truth of such allegations doesn't even matter. ...If you did it at the convention hall it would probably have additional salutary effects, and then you could repurpose it as a hall of justice after the convention is over."

"Do you expect a proposal to cover the entire convention with a Zone of Truth to pass the floor, Your Grace?" Marit would frankly be thrilled about that but he has gotten the impression that a proposal like that would at best be highly controversial.

"I have a very hard time guessing the mood of the floor on things like that. I would want to have it in our back pocket and then bring it out after some particular incident to which it would have been relevant, probably. ...if you don't say we mean to bid for the Inquisitor casting it, you'll probably get votes from people who think they can resist it successfully. But perhaps that is too much scheming for the Church to countenance from its allies." Even though it would be so incredibly satisfying.

There are several kinds of sex that don't produce children, people. Also lots of circumstances under which having sex is a woman's only way to protect and provide for herself and her children, either directly or because her employer requires it.

She's not going to say that. She's going to continue shutting up and delicately gorging herself on this twelve-course meal and hoping that magical food doesn't disappear as soon as you leave the mansion. She'll be so heartbreakingly hungry if it all leaves her system afterwards.

Wait, but -

"Why isn't promiscuity a dueling insult for men, then?"

"Abandoning your children is," Xavier says, "but it's hardly an insult to civilization for a man to have a mistress as long as he supports her. There's no symmetric alliance between men to shame such men, as there is among women."

"Nor would you expect one. A man who has a mistress isn't damaging the interests of other men in any way. Maybe if he had so many mistresses as to produce a local shortage of women but in most places there are more women than men, as young men get themselves killed more."

She doesn't know quite what she's trying to say, the argument is too tangled for her, but -

"I would be very hesitant to judge the woman in that situation, knowing what her likely options are, and seeing that her children are in fact provided for. If the argument is that I am meant to judge her because her actions teach men that they can get away without commitment, which leads to many women being abandoned, then surely the man is also teaching other men this, and thereby injuring women and their families. And injuring civilization, to the extent that women and their families are a part of civilization."

"Most bandits are bandits because all of their available options were terrible and many of them because they were desperate to feed their families and yet a society that does not judge bandits falls apart immediately. But - of course we should have pity for prostitutes, and I do not approve at all of practices like denying them access to the temples or refusing to prosecute crimes committed against them."

That is an incredibly vicious thing to say about every woman who has chosen to sleep with a man who is decent enough to provide for her children, but who will not sign a paper.

She should shut up -

"I am sorry, this is a very stupid question, but if you will all forgive me, I have been caring for other people's children in an Iomedan orphanage since the war flattened my house, and had not have not had time to study other countries' mores recently. It sounds to me as if you are saying that in healthy societies, men still inevitably have mistresses, and they care for those mistresses and their children, which is admirable. But they are also encouraged to see these women to whom they entrust their children as common prostitutes, and in turn as women who are fundamentally defecting against the project of all civilization, so despised that in these places people would consider denying them access to the justice system, or to the teachings which might save their souls. I am sure I am misunderstanding something, but I lack so much context that I cannot see where."

Valentia is going to very placidly sip wine and not look at her father even a little bit.

Oh my, someone's upset about being called a whore.

That doesn't seem far wrong, though Jilia hasn't given it that much thought.