Azeryani Social Organization

Within Azeryani society there are many ties which act to create social groups, but two stand out as the most important. The first, and most pervasive, of these is the institution of patronage.

The basic premise of patronage is that individuals attach themselves to individuals of greater wealth and power. The social superior acts as patron and the inferior as client. Patrons use their wealth and power to support and aid their clients in their businesses and in return are given a share of the profits. Clients support the interests of their patron, pay a share of their profits, and in turn receive financial and political backing. When the system works correctly both sides profit from this arrangement.

As an example, Callistia is a powerful noblewoman with large landholdings. She acts as patrons to a variety of merchants, some who run shops and some who travel to purchase and sell goods in foreign ports. In general, members of a clientage are expected to preferentially utilize each other's services and exchange favors. Grausus is a baker and a client of Callistia. Because Callistia also has a client, Themistius, who specializes in transporting agricultural products to the city markets, Grausus buys his flour through Callistia from Themistius, even though these might not be the cheapest prices for flour. In return Themistius buys his baked goods from Grausus. During a year when the harvest is bad and there is a grain shortage, Callistia would use her influence to attempt to secure grain for Themistius to carry, thus insuring that both of her clients are not driven out of business in the bad times. She may even arrange to take a loss to keep both of her clients working well and competing with similar clientages elsewhere in the city.

The institution of patronage shapes the daily rhythms of city life quite profoundly. Morning is the time to for clients to visit patrons to check in, show their loyalty, and handle any current business. Each client will visit his/her patron at least once per tenday and usually several times. This means that an individual client might have several compulsory visits to make during each tenday. During visiting hours the foyer of the patron's home will be filled with a small crowd of clients, each waiting his/her turn.

Patronage is a many-tiered relationship. The lowest level clients visit their patrons earliest in the morning, sometimes before sunup. Later in the morning these lower level patrons switch roles to become clients and in turn visit their own patrons. This playing of dual roles, patron to your inferiors and client to your superior, continues up to the highest levels of society. The higher one is on this social scale, the later one can sleep in. The Azeryani visualization of social structure in general is modelled on patronage, with the lowest person being a client, and the ties of patronage continuing upward in a pyramid to the emperor.

The second of the most important social glues is family. Ties of family operate on two levels, that of the clan and that of the household. Clan ties are important to all Azeryani and define much of who the individual is. Clans are defined by blood relationships and connections between households, not by proximity. It is entirely possible to be part of the same clan as individuals from the opposite end of the empire whom you have never met, yet these people are family and should be treated as such. Each clan has a patron deity, usually a deified common ancestor, who is seen as the ultimate leader of the clan. In a very real sense clan members are seen as clients of the patron deity and treat each other as if they belonged to a very special clientage. Members of the clan will do each other favors in order to further the clan as a whole, knowing that their efforts will be reciprocated.

Households are also modelled on patronage, using the household matriarch or patriarch as the patron. Each member of the household is considered a member of the family; this includes slaves as well as the free. Note that blood relationship is NOT a requirement for being part of the family. It definitely influences status within the family but does not define the family. Unlike patronage, the household matriarch has substantial power over the members of the household. She controls their lives down to minute details, if she so wishes. She can prevent any member of the household from engaging in business, no matter his/her age, arranges and controls marriages, can prevent members from moving out and hence becoming independent, and can have any member of the household whipped for disobedience. Members of the family are expected to be loyal and obedient, helpful to each other (as with members of a clientage), and generally support the interests of the family. Personal interests are always subordinate to the interests of the family. This frequently causes conflicts of loyalty as the individual is torn between patron and family.

As noted, cohabitation, not blood relationship, is the prerequisite for membership in a family. Fosterage is a very common social practice which is used to tie families and clans together. Foster children become full members of their foster families and secondary members of their original family. This occasionally provokes some tension in mixed loyalties but mostly the ties to the foster family strongly outweigh any others. Nevertheless, the tie to the original family is enough to be used to shape alliances or more closely link members of a clientage.

It is important to note that Azeryani impose the models of patronage and family on almost all social institutions. The empire as a whole is often viewed as a family with the emperor serving as patriarch. The various offices of the bureaucracy are described as being clients with the regional government head as patron. Given Azeryani cultural-centrism they tend to see this pattern in most other cultures they meet, whether it is present or not.
July 16, 2001

This page was last updated on January 23, 2002
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