Polgara the Sorceress

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Got you that time, didn’t I, Old Wolf?

Then King Cherek and his sons, Dras Bull-neck and Algar Fleet-foot, arrived for the wedding, and things began to get just a bit more serious. Despite the way Beldaran and Riva felt about each other, my sister had been right. Theirs was an arranged marriage. The possibility that my father might also decide to arrange one for me – just to protect me from all those fawning suitors – raised its ugly head. There was in those days – probably even still existing – the idea that women are intellectually inferior to men. Men did – and many still do – automatically assume that women are empty-headed ninnies who’ll fall prey to the first glib young man who comes along with certain ideas in his mind. The result, of course, is the virtual imprisonment of almost all women of a certain rank. What my father and all those other primitives can’t seem to realize is that we’ll resent that imprisonment and go to almost any lengths to circumvent it. That might help to explain why so many girls become involved with inappropriate young men. In most cases the character of the young man doesn’t make a jot of difference. The girl in question is driven by a desire to show them that she can do it, rather than by empty-headed lust.

That’s frequently the reason for so many arranged marriages. The father marries his daughter off as soon as possible to ‘protect’ her. After she marries, any dalliances she chooses to take up to amuse herself are her husband’s problem.

The possibility that father might choose to shackle me to either Dras or Algar made me distinctly uneasy for a while.