Ghers

"**Ghers** are caste-segregated neighbourhoods and villages in which residents pool their resources, educate their children, treat their sick, and do most of their socialising. Only ghers men have the right to vote in local and national elections. It’s very difficult to get by in Alderode as an efhghersit."

"Ghers[ ]actually predate Alderode, from an era called Vu Rortaid llut baellene ghers - King Rortide and the thousand tribes. Rortide was the warrior-king who founded Alderode, conquering its disparate peoples and uniting them under one rule. The ghers are the modern equivalent of those old tribes. The idea of Separate But United is ingrained in Alderode, and they acclimated to the castes of the Dammakhert surprisingly well because of it.

These ghers working together, ruled by a single leader, was the norm. It’s the efhghersit - the exiled [(lit. person not belonging to a ghers]- who grew in number over the centuries. Most of them are Bronze, and Bronze are, in large part, the result of intercaste unions. So as centuries pass and humans boink who humans are going to boink, we get more Bronze, and more efhghersit.
And among them, people who have been ejected from their ghers for whatever reason.

If a ghers loses all its members, it’s dissolved. The government[ is] aware of these issues though and recruits evenly from all ghers and also from among the efhghersit. If you serve well being one of the latter, the government will make sure you get reinstated into a ghers when your service is up. It’s really the only way to get into one if you’ve lost your place or were born to an exiled parent.
You could start a new ghers, sure. I’m not sure what the exact requirements are but there are rules to go about it. Ghers have political power and ghersit have specific rights written into the country’s constitution, so the government doesn’t let you willy-nilly start one[,] or recruit transients off the street into your ghers so you have more votes."

"Ghers men [vote for mayors, governors, and Vits Councilmen. Vits Councilmen must be vetted by their respective religious bodies however, so you only secure a nomination if the Ssaelit or Gefendur organizations approve of you. Often only one candidate will meet this requirement during an election cycle, leaving you… just one option on the ballot.
Considering the government is intentionally balanced fifty-fifty Gefendur/Ssaelit, this has done a decent job providing a variety of opinions at the table, and also forced the two sides to work together if they ever want to get anything done.
[At least it used to, prior to the government] “Rebalancing”."

"If you’re a private person or an introvert, living in a ghers would be a nightmare. Except for the richest of them, most urban ghers are enormous apartment complexes built right on top of each other, with a single central courtyard that holds communal gardens, a bath house, chickens, goats, and sometimes a hound kennel. All schooling is done by the community’s smartest ladies. Your whole social live revolves around your ghers. Neighbours gather for every holiday and the birthdays and funerals of notable residents, while all the women garden and do laundry together and the men work communally to keep the buildings and grounds in good repair. Everyone sees you coming and going and knows all your business.
Mikaila Adelier was a frequent topic of conversation in her ghers. Every time she was caught doing pymary the news of it spread around the community like a headcold, and soon enough the elders would come rap-rap-rapping at the Adeliers’ front door to tell Duane yet again that he needed to get a grip on that girl. These were the same elders nagging Duane that his up-and-coming brother should choose one of their girls for a wife. The ghers really wanted the other Adelier to move in - Lem was a hot property.
Ghers solidarity meant that Mikaila was no one else’s business. The Soud are especially tight-lipped about what goes on in their communities because they don’t want to give Sultetit [-true Dammakhert sultetit-] an excuse to come into their domain and make trouble for them. It’s hard enough being Soud. So [no] one was discussing [Mikaila Adelier’s] abilities with outsiders."

"Rural ghers are typically structured in the way that Quigley’s was. They’re villages of usually a single caste, though sometimes a few will share. They encompass farms or fisheries or rookeries or goat and hound ranches. Some of them were noble estates or plantations centuries ago, and can trace their bloodline back to a single noble family that fell from grace. They all tend to be very xenophobic, terrified of efhghersit or even other ghers temping their young away towards better opportunities in the cities."

"The ghers school [teaches ghersit children reading, writing and arithmetic]. The richer ghers might have highly educated professors that give students sound foundations in history, geography, the sciences, even pymary theory, but for the most part it’s the ghers’ ladies who serve as teachers. Leysa helps teach the blonde kiddies how to read, for instance." "While it’s true a married woman in a moderate to privileged ghers is expected to be a homemaker, ghers also have a lot of positions that have to be filled by its members in order to function properly. A ghers is like a little village. It needs schoolteachers for its children, caretakers for its elderly, gardeners and keepers for its communal garden and animals. Some of these tasks fall on kids, but most of them fall on the ghers’ women. These aren’t jobs, per se, and there’s no compensation, but if you’re asked to do these things you have to do them."

"Ghers hold chaperoned dances, potlucks, and parties where single people can mingle safely and honourably, and matchmakers can watch them. No one wants an unhappy couple, so once two people are paired up (usually by their parents) the matchmakers encourage them to meet, have a conversation, share a meal, see if it will work. If they obviously hate each other it’s a matchmaker’s duty to see if some other arrangement can be made. In poorer ghers and in the slums and countryside, the whole affair is much more laid back, but Alds really do not like unmarried men and women to be alone together."

"Most of the ghers have wagewrights guarding them at night, and nothing will make you more conspicuous than if a glamour’s sensed on you." "If one is banished from one’s ghers, they will also shave your head and burn the hair to show that you’re dead to them."

"There are really Two Alderodes. There are the moderately comfortable caste-separated people in the ghers system, and then there’s everyone else: disenfranchised dregs who live in the slums and countryside."

1. ↑ https://unsoundedcomic.tumblr.com/post/633618149400576000/anon-from-reading-these-asks-im-willing-to
2. ↑ https://unsoundedcomic.tumblr.com/post/674478152846819328/is-ef-in-tainish-a-prefix-meaning-not-or-maybe
3. ↑ https://unsoundedcomic.tumblr.com/post/184781739875/with-their-being-such-a-big-proportion-of
4. ↑ https://unsoundedcomic.tumblr.com/post/179535425920/how-much-electoral-freedom-is-there-an-alderode
5. ↑ https://unsoundedcomic.tumblr.com/post/613957820263596032/how-tight-knit-are-the-families-of-the-ghers-the
6. ↑ https://unsoundedcomic.tumblr.com/post/619133656940871680/hi-glass-you-talked-a-week-or-two-ago-about
7. ↑ https://unsoundedcomic.tumblr.com/post/186663009050/so-how-do-ghers-school-and-ssaelit-school-differ
8. ↑ https://unsoundedcomic.tumblr.com/post/644282229333360640/are-there-any-jobs-an-aldish-woman-could-take-with
9. ↑ https://unsoundedcomic.tumblr.com/post/631061936767991808/so-ive-recently-been-reading-posts-about-marriage
10. ↑ https://unsoundedcomic.tumblr.com/post/189924529860/whats-the-best-way-for-sneaky-persons-to-get
11. ↑ https://unsoundedcomic.tumblr.com/post/642520944258220032/would-it-be-considered-a-serious-faux-pas-to-shave
12. ↑ https://unsoundedcomic.tumblr.com/post/630699552083689472/is-there-an-underground-culture-of-flouting-caste