Building A Civilized Society Part Three

"Alright, now we should move on to discussing the matter of females abandoning mates. I get that females depend on their males to attend to their needs and it's bad to restrict others' freedom in deciding how to best ensure they can live comfortable lives.

However, I think it is also terrible that abandoned males can lose their lives or be exiled from the tribe and become wild beasts. Things like a male being injured while out hunting shouldn't lead to them losing their lives just because the family doesn't want the burden of caring for them."

Iris seemed passionate as she brought up her views. However, Basil still felt concerned as he countered

"There are also cases of males forcing a female to mate with them or mistreating a female. The fear of abandonment works as protection for a female. If you take the option away completely then the females aren't likely to agree to live under such a law."

Iris nodded her head in agreement with Basil's point.

"Yes, we had issues with assault and abuse in my world too. Surely if we just leave in a clause that allows it in cases of assault, abuse, or other extreme circumstances; it should be fine?"

Basil nodded to show this sounded reasonable to him. Females were likely to still be hesitant to agree, but having a good relationship where everyone treats the others well was ideal. It wasn't even like the law would force the females to treat their mates any particular way, it would only prevent abandonment.

Iris then moved onto a related point

"So, I'm not sure this should necessarily be a law, but it is worth considering. I'm not sure what happens with elderly beasts in the beast world normally as I haven't seen many elderly or crippled beastmen. However, I don't think we should have a bunch of required fees for shelter, businesses, etc as well as require our tribesmen to participate in conflicts without protections."

Basil's face grew grim as he gave Iris the info she clearly wanted. He was not happy to discuss the darker side of life in the beast world, but wouldn't hide it from Iris either.

"As you already mentioned, females often abandon crippled males who can no longer provide for them. If they don't die from the mate bond backlash, they end up a wild beast who may end up starving to death anyway.

Since males' lifespans are determined by the female's, it is possible that a family could end up too old to easily provide for themselves. In such cases, males have been known to kill their mates rather than watch them suffer. If a male survives the backlash of the mate bond, they often then take their own lives.

Usually, males try to move to a city and save up sufficient funds before they get too old. Then they can buy food with the crystals they saved up while they were younger and more capable. However, there are also cases of males still taking on jobs and dying on the job when they are running low on funds.

Some males closer to the age of three tens (30) of years old will also willingly mate with older females. This prevents the males from dying an early death and gives the older females more capable males who can provide for them. Although, after thirty females are less likely to survive birthing cubs. So these males end up giving up on the chance of having a family and just live to serve the older females.

Since beasts don't usually take care of those not in their own families, the older beasts are left to their own devices. Tribal leaders and the royalty and priests in the cities do not interfere with these matters or offer any help."

Iris scowled at this news, even despite suspecting most of it. She sighed as she replied

"I don't want that for our tribesmen. I'd rather make it so that we provide opportunities for them to still thrive within our tribe. Older beasts could teach the younger generation or do jobs like weaving to earn a living without risking their lives.

Besides this, while I am still trying to figure out how to efficiently use the mountains to build the inner city, I think we could have a place for the elderly and crippled. The largest mountain would likely have the main housing and public spaces, but we have several smaller mountains that could also be used.

We could have homes built for the elderly and crippled to use in one of the smaller mountains. If single males are crippled while fighting on behalf of our tribe or if a female's family has been with our tribe for five-plus years, we should allow them to use these homes.

The stone brick homes we charge a weekly or yearly fee and have the option of purchasing with a smaller yearly fee thereafter. However, the inner city's homes will likely only be available for purchase with a small yearly fee and only be for official tribesmen.

I think we could make it so that tribesmen could trade their old home in the larger mountain for one of the homes in the smaller mountain when they become elderly. We could completely waive the fees on the home and just let them live there for free for the rest of their life. It isn't as if we will have many crippled or elderly beasts at a time so it won't be much of a loss.

I plan to reinstate the weekly feasts later on when the inner city is complete for only those who are official tribesmen. The yearly fees would cover the cost of ingredients to feed people since we obviously pay people to grow the food in the first place. However, I think the crippled and elderly should still qualify for the feast even with the fees waived.

With jobs like teaching, weaving, cooking, etc. the elderly should be able to buy meat or plants from the market since we will have one built by the time it's an issue. So no one has to risk their lives hunting or doing dangerous work.

Again, I don't know if that's really a thing we make a law, but I think we should still do it. What do you think?

Basil and Ember were quite surprised by this well-thought-out and compassionate proposal. They had never heard of any tribe or city doing something similar before. No one else was as generous as their mate was to even think of such a thing! Thus, neither had anything to say for quite a while.