"Discourage it, certainly, but if someone is today, already running around aged fifteen with a baby and we'd like to let her sue whoever left her with it, her being fifteen is if anything more reason to let her do that - and if someone is discouraged and then enchanted or abducted or something, likewise. - Marit, I don't think it's in the Code Cyprian, it's an idea of Delegate Tallandria's."

"Ah, my apologies. I suppose in that case I have the same question for you," he says to Tallandria.

Oh, gods, having to speak is arguably worse than not getting to. At least that's a clear enough address. She feels sick, but at least half of that is that they're all sitting around calmly discussing whether a woman's ability to participate in society on equal terms should be in any way related to the question of whether anyone wants to fuck her.

"It's a proposal that the family committee is working on, though it isn't ready for the floor yet. We'd discussed the possibility of making siring a bastard either a crime with a purely financial penalty, or a tort," hopefully she's using that word correctly, "and had been thinking about a fine of about thirty gold or so, or not more than two or three years of agricultural indenture for anyone incapable of paying. Archduke Requena pointed out earlier that it's a bit unfair to make it formally a crime for men who are in fact supporting the resulting children, but if we wanted to use civil court cases to enforce it, you would of course need a civil court system that young unmarried women were both formally allowed to bring suit in, and capable of actually navigating without expensive legal counsel."

"We could reserve the franchise for marriage for both sexes, if we have a franchise, and permit everyone to bring suits in court. But I don't know if legal sex equality will pass the floor. It is further radicalism on top of the Code Cyprian."

"What other radicalism do you think worth highlighting?"

What the hell does 'radical' even mean. Cheliax has had legal sex equality in almost every respect for the last seventy years. ...probably. She's never talked to anyone who remembered it not having it.

"It is almost entirely without formal privileges of the nobility."

"It respects the rights of the householder and the employer, however."

"I'll back it, unless the Church is opposed. But you and I and the Archduchess are the three most liberal nobles in that room."

And now is when Joan-Pau arrives, along with a guest! He continues to wear a sword, as is traditional for nobles, even ones who never actually use the things!

Eulàlia is a wizard and carries a dagger but not a sword. She is very spectacularly dressed and very pleased to be Joan-Pau's date to a fancy noble dinner. Everything's going great!!!


What a concentration of power. She will bow very appropriately. 

" - three of the four, arguably. Your excellencies, thank you for joining us! I enjoyed your speeches today, Seguer."

More importantly so did hot boy. "Your grace. I have to say without the lich hunted I think the speeches would've been to no avail."

"We are all very grateful to the brave men who did it." Carlota is no longer insecure about having merely ordered it. Alexeara does not actually need a wife who is good at killing monsters.

"It was chiefly Lord Marshal Cansellarion's work, the rest of us just supported him. Greetings, Your Highness, Your Highness..." he'll go down the list.

Xavier is still used to Joan-Pau being the leader of the single most radical subfaction of the single most radical faction in Molthuni politics rather than an Excellency, but this will not stop him from being pleased to see him and his guest and greeting them appropriately.

"Several people were vital," nod to Korva, "but that doesn't make any of them less appreciated. They were very fine speeches, Lady Seguer, and it's a pleasure to see you both."

"Anyway, I think we can get the Code Cyprian and I do not want to sink it over equality of the sexes, which I do not think we can get, though I'd vote for it unless the Church is opposed. I suppose, Tallandria, Archduchess, if you think you can win a fight over equality of the sexes you could introduce it out of Rights, and then it stands or falls separately from civil courts and if it passes we can just modify the Code Cyprian 'in line with the resolution this body previously supported'."

"I would worry quite a lot about introducing new inequalities in one of the few places where this country doesn't have them, on the hope that we can actively roll back what we've already passed later. Especially if the specific rights the Code Cyprian limits are the very ones we most need unmarried women to have, in order to solve the orphanage crisis."

"I promise you, I am more sympathetic than most people to legal equality of the sexes. But nowhere does that. No, it's actually worse than 'nowhere does that'. Hell did it. I don't think you can get the votes....probably we can sneak in a way for pregnant women to use the civil courts, if we tailor it narrowly."

"I think all the Outer Planes do it in their own fashions."

"But Hell gave it to us, to make us worse; Her Grace is right, it's a terrible precedent even if the recent-native-born will, accordingly, be majority in favor. It might be best to include use of civil courts, bringing suit and testifying, in the Family's proposal directly, unless you think it would make that sink; if we call the old thirteen 'young adulthood' and say it's for all young adults. And if there are other protections important to make specific, Rights can propose those. I'm trying not to abuse the committee's remit, and stick to things that constrain the law's execution, rather than structure it."

"I think you can secure any number of specific universal rights if the Church backs them and they sound reasonable and it at no point becomes a fight over women's rights in particular. I think once someone manages to provoke a fight over women's rights in particular they will lose."

"It might work if it's a married man pushing it. But you're probably right."