Agreed. #TeamSmallfolk. 

It’s a bit confusing. In the case of Barrowton, I think it’s that there are no Dustin relatives, and no other claimants strong enough to take on the Ryswells. 

In the case of Lady Hornwood, I think it’s a widow’s use-right (i.e, the right to occupy the dead husband’s estate until death) combined with the lack of consensus at to the heir. 

Harwin’s speech in ASOS is evidence precisely of that:

“When Ned met this Dornish lady, his brother Brandon was still alive, and it was him betrothed to Lady Catelyn, so there’s no stain on your father’s honor. There’s nought like a tourney to make the blood run hot, so maybe some words were whispered in a tent of a night, who can say? Words or kisses, maybe more, but where’s the harm in that? Spring had come, or so they thought, and neither one of them was pledged.” (ASOS)

I’m not saying it’s considered ok in all circumstances, I’m saying there’s a loophole in one specific circumstance* – when the two get married afterwards. Robb marrying Jeyne doesn’t make sense if the two of them having premarital sex isn’t cancelled out by the marriage, for example. While we’re talking about Margaery, it’s pretty clear that the Reach has an “anything but” policy when it comes to sex before marriage – and even that didn’t stop Olenna Redwyne from snagging Luthor Tyrell. 

And in this specific circumstance, the dishonor for the woman in question is mediated by her culture. “There are other customs besides that mark the Dornish as different. They are not greatly concerned if a child is born in wedlock or out of it, especially if the child is born to a paramour.” If Ashara Dayne wouldn’t consider an affair dishonorable, and a Northman like Harwin wouldn’t either, why would Ned?

* and even then, the dishonor is not immutable. Gatehouse Ami is still able to get a good marriage with lands, Walder’s sister ditto.  

Show me any evidence that Ned himself would consider it dishonorable, and I’ll concede the point. But I mean specifically two people who are free to marry and of equal rank. 

Because Ned was the one who saddled up and helped to take Pyke while Tywin was sulking over his burned fleet. 

Blackfyre is not the generic Targaryen Bastard name. Just Daemon’s. Hence Brynden and Aegor Rivers, but Daemon Waters pre-legitimation. 

Jon Snow is Jon Snow because he was raised in the North. 

Mya Stone is Mya Stone because she was raised in the Vale. 

That is something that comes up in debates over this, especially on westeros.org. Ser Barristan’s conception of dishonored is very different from what Ashara Dayne’s would have been. 

I don’t believe it. 

Ok, let me do this in one go, because I got a lot of questions about this, including from southagermican, and I didn’t want to write this multiple times.

Yes, it’s true, a lot of patriarchal societies privilege being a virgin at marriage. But societies also need to show flexibility because human beings are human. So one adaptation, historically, was to adopt the “shotgun marriage” approach – as long as people got married after they got pregnant, they could fool around all they wanted. 

To give an example of this: few people would disagree that as far as religious, patriarchal societies go, the Puritans of 17th century New England were pretty far up on that list. However, in that place and time, over a third of all first born children involved a pre-marital pregnancy (Laurel Ulrich, A Midwife’s Tale). In fact, the Puritans even practiced something called “bundling,” in which parents would put their teenage kids – as long as they were suitable matches – in the same bed and let them go to it. 

I think a similar attitude exists in Westeros, as Harwin’s quote indicates. As long as the parents get married before the kid’s born, then the kid’s legitimate, the daughter has a household to support her child rather than becoming a burden on her parents, and the lines of succession aren’t messed with.

onionjulius:

racefortheironthrone:

Sex before marriage isn’t dishonorable. Harwin says as much: 

“When Ned met this Dornish lady, his brother Brandon was still alive, and it was him betrothed to Lady Catelyn, so there’s no stain on your father’s honor. There’s nought like a tourney to make the blood run hot, so maybe some words were whispered in a tent of a night, who can say? Words or kisses, maybe more, but where’s the harm in that? Spring had come, or so they thought, and neither one of them was pledged.”

As for Brandon, while I’m not sure whether or not he “loved” Catelyn, I’m pretty sure he was attracted to her. Catelyn was a beautiful woman, everyone pretty much agrees on that, and womanizers normally are attracted to beautiful women. 

It’s just as weird to generalize one’s self into saying that it is somehow normal for Brandon to have been attracted to Catelyn as it is to generalize one’s self into saying that it is somehow normal for Ashara to have been attracted to Brandon (which it seems you object to). What if Brandon preferred a dangerous if not traditionally beautiful woman like Barbrey? What would it mean if he thought Catelyn was pretty in her pure little Catholic schoolgirl way but had no intention of giving up his other dalliances upon marriage, how does that work for the parallel? And w.r.t. this supposed parallel and how it strengthens the idea of N+A=♥, if all we know is that Brandon and Catelyn found each other attractive, then the only thing required for a parallel is that Ned and Ashara found each other attractive when they met at a dance.

You can obviously write the fanfic where Brandon is attracted to and indeed extremely attracted to Catelyn, but the text is absolutely not definitive. If one is pretty sure about anything in this debate, it’s because one likes the sound of it.

That’s a fair point. On the other hand, 

1. Barbrey isn’t exactly a neutral narrator on this point, nor is Brandon particularly believable, given that he’s talking to his dishonored girlfriend about how he totally doesn’t want to marry this other woman, honest. 

2. The text isn’t definitive, but my reading of Catelyn VII of AGOT suggests that Brandon was certainly not averse to Catelyn – in addition to fighting the duel, there’s the wearing of her favor, accepting her request, and promising to return to marry her. 

However, the main point that I was getting at is that sex before marriage between two people who aren’t engaged to anyone else isn’t considered dishonorable.