"Hardly anyone wants more than one spouse and no one, even kings, is expected to. He has two because his first wife died and insisted on staying dead, and at the time he thought that would last indefinitely, and he wanted more children, so he found someone else who loved him and wanted children and married her too. Eventually his first wife was willing to come back and then there he was with two wives. They worked it out - the wives have since also married one another - but it's still a little scandalous."

"Women can marry each other, in your world?"

"They can, just like men can marry each other."

" - huh."

"Both became legal at the same time, actually. It used to be that only men and women could marry."

"Here too, I think, when we were ruled by foreigners."

"Well, I'm glad that's been at least halfway amended."

"I guess two women marrying wouldn't be silly if one was a wizard or something."

"What does one being a wizard accomplish?"

"She could support a household."

"I think I'm missing something. Ismat over there if I caught the right bits of the conversation makes plenty of money and supported her brother for a long time, right?"

"She dressed up as a man to do it, which is illegal. It wouldn't really work to say women can marry other women as long as at least one of them is doing some crimes to make the finances work."

"...okay, but she still has the job skills necessary, doesn't she?"

" - well, yes, but no one'd work for her once they knew she was a woman, until she was a married one and to a prince and then some of them had to sort of concede it was all right."

"...why wouldn't they work for her?"

"...because she was a woman?"

"Yes, but why does that matter?"

"You might have to ask Ismat but I would expect people felt like it was a vaguely scandalous thing to be associated with and their husbands and fathers didn't want them involved and customers expected the quality wasn't as good or something."

"And they don't have this problem with wizards?"

"I think wizards mostly work for the church, which has set fees for spells, or for adventurers, or they make objects which someone else can sell."

"Well. In my world there isn't this situation at all with respect to what women can do."

"Do you ...do things?"

"I study our gods and give them advice and sometimes write books about what I learn."

"Oh! That's neat. Some people do that here, but they mostly publish under their husband's names, if they do at all."

"Rúmil writes his own books!"