Society of Barrayar

Barrayaran culture is a culture mixing traditional traits coming from the Time of Isolation with features developed after the reestablishment of contacts with the wider Nexus.

Barrayar was isolated from the rest of the known galaxy for many centuries, and devolved into a quasi-medieval level of technology. Modernisation proceeded rapidly at the price of a great deal of culture shock. While the cities are modern, much of rural Barrayar is still not too different from conditions in the "Time of Isolation".

However, most of very basic habits, such as eating or drinking, are very different from most advanced Nexus planets, which have less familiarity with animals and animal-derived food or with alcohol: formal Barrayaran meals are accompanied by traditional toasts and the most common practice is to drain the glass for each toast. The military and official systems use kilometres instead of miles, but socially Barrayar never left traditional measurement units.

The planet's society is a male-prevalent hierarchy, with inheritance laws based on primogeniture, and the military is almost closed to women, war and fight being perceived as a strictly male duty.

A stratified society

The Barrayaran society is deeply characterised by a complex stratification, being characterised by allegiance ties and by some feudal traits and dominated by a military caste known as the Vors, headed by an Emperor and sixty Counts each governing a district.

Vor

The uppermost layer of the Barrayaran society consists of the Vor warrior caste. Within the Vor class, the High Vor - that is, the sixty county families - is the most economically and politically powerful social group.

In Barrayaran village life, there was often one principal family of lesser Vor gentry, owning much of the land and living in the largest and oldest house. The head of this nuclear family was often the seigneur of the home.

Lesser Vors are gentlemen with a their own coat of arms and are often of the same families of High Vors.

From an honorific point of view, male Lesser Vors are referred to as "Mister", while female Lesser Vors are reffered to as "Madame". Furthermore, "Mr." is used with a first name to distinguish among family members who might otherwise be confused in conversation: "Mr. Vor-Surname" is the family head or the eldest present; younger brothers or cousins are then referred to as "Mr. Richard Vor-Surname" and "Mr. William Vor-Surname" and so on.

Even nowadays, in the Vors' worldsview, the military service within the Army (or the ground forces) is considered a somewhat more prestigious career than the Navy (or the spaceborne forces). There is a descending order of occupations which a Vor (a lesser Vor) or a son of an high officer could aspire to: military service within the Army (or the ground forces), the Navy (or the spaceborne forces), Law occupations, bureaucratic service and related politics, local politics, Farming and landowning, Medicine, Trade. However, a trade occupation is not considered as a dishonourable profession and Vor tradesmen or industrialists are respected.

Being Vor is a matter of pre-definite occupation rather than of hereditary aristocracy; a Vor is a Vor if his or her status is transferred by inheritance or is bestowed by the Emperor. It can be subdivided into two major classes: the High Vors and the other Vors. The highest among these classes, the High Vors, retains feudal rights and full political representation, while the other class has less (but still consistent) privileges.

Proeles and plebs

Subordinate classes are collectively known as "proeles and plebs". However, a complex stratification system exists also beyond the Vor warrior caste.

"Selmoches" are the wealthy commoners (originally exclusively wealthy farmers, nowadays generally-speaking the middle class), "Zemelepas" are middle-to-lower class, ranging from artisans to small independent farmers; "Rabots" (urban poor, now including working class) and "Bemezys" (poor peasants, in the past not completely free) also exist. While the first two classes constitute the "Plebs", the latter ones are the "Proeles". The Plebs are in turn stratified. The top tier of rural Selmoches are known as the Frigolders, next to the Vor landed gentry. Similarly, Zitels are the urban upper class who is not Vor.

It is to note that belonging to a Proeles class does not necessarily mean that the personal income is low, nor being a Selmoche automatically grants a significant wealth. In turn, lesser Vors often live as Plebs (although it is almost unheard of a Vor living intermingled with Proeles).

Militarism

The Imperial Military Service is a a significant and prestigious institution, respected in all society layers; however, rebelliousness within the youth is quite fairly tolerated, and the idea of limited, progressive changing (a change per generation) is accepted. The conscription term could be considered a sort of rite of passage: after the mandatory military service a young man is generally considered being wise enough to live independently. Military is also among the few ways through which a non-Vor man or woman could carry weapons: since Vors are the proper military caste, a prole or a plebeian could carry weapons only if he is in the military (the service weapons only) or if he is in the service of his liege lord.
On Barrayar - especially in the very backcountry - ordinary people is very wary of foreigners, which are regarded with suspicion due to the fact that Barrayaran society has got used to see everything outside the close circle of imported Earth life as hostile. The traditionalist nature of Barrayaran society does not comply very well with scientific or progressive approaches, but deals quite easily with scientific research, until scientists do not try to change the way of life. However, some inventions such as the uterine replicator had been well accepted almost since their introduction, in early XXIX Century. The introduction of the uterine replicators, despite of the Barrayaran progressives' predictions, did not hinder the traditionalist way, but did cause some relaxation into sex moral issues.
A person born a peasant usually dies a peasant, if he does not choose the military career, which is among the few ways to improve the social position: a significant part of the highest Generals and Admirals comes from a peasant background and they are well respected for their military status. The social mobility is slightly higher for a city inhabitant, although most of them inherit father's or mother's profession. However, since clerks demand has been growing for seventy years, it is not so uncommon, at least in major cities, that a son of an industry worker could get a clerk employment and could raise to the middle class, if he is capable. Also the spatial mobility is not so high, also due to relatively high costs of space flights and interstellar trips.
The mixture between widespread militarism and strongly rooted nationalism produces a variety of feasts, holidays and celebrations, such as the Freedom Day, which remembers the end of the First Cetagandan War. The national holiday, held on the Summer Solstice, anniversary of the Peace of Solstice, involves big celebrations, visits to cemeteries to burn offerings and parades in each District. The District parades where the war took its harshest forms are the most spectacular, with war souvenirs on display, scaring stories to be given to children, war-time weapons and vehicles are paraded by District forces and by the surviving war veterans and popular re-enactments of the best battles, which also serve as a military mass exercise. However, the most important and solemn event is the Imperial Military Parade, led by the Emperor himself, which is held in Vorbarr Sultana.
Vor ruling class collectively is one of the greatest patrons of the arts and architecture and in late years upper class societies of both Komarr and Barrayar are flourishing in culture and refinement.
Society is considerably stratified, and some stratification patterns are becoming, in the first years of Emperor Serg's rule, quite common within all the Empire. The Barrayaran class system creates an intricate hierarchy of people which contrast the new and old rich, the skilled and unskilled, the rural and urban and many more; this contrasts are often inherent to living standards. However, the steady economic growth rate allows to keep in order even the less affluent areas of Vorbarr Sultana, which has an its own social stratification. The gap in the hierarchy of society sometimes is so great that those of the upper urban classes in the very rural backcountry could be viewed by those below as almost wondrous fiction, something entirely out of reach yet tangibly there.
The population is steadily increasing on Barrayar, and has been increasing since over a century, and this keeps controlled salaries and wages, while the welfare state is increasingly capable to address urban poverty demands; on the other hand, rural poor are well protected by their own communities. Trade unions are quite well accepted on all the Empire, if they constraint themselves to labour requests and demands, while socialist and proletarian leagues are attentively watched and barely tolerated. On Komarr, both workers organised in trade unions and trade unions on their own are often Corporations shareholders; there are also some corporations owned only by their workers, the so-called Cooperative Corporations (a model spreading within the Empire).
Under the apparent blanket of calm, however, many social problems act and evolve. In some interior underdeveloped districts, banditry and brigandage are sometimes a challenge to the institutions, and, in spite of the welfare state in full development, wages remain low. Strikes are frequent and sometimes degenerate into plunder or looting episodes, especially if they are politically motivated. The phenomenon of liberal and republican terrorism is spreading over the Empire, due to the influence of neighbouring states, and is based on the belief that the elimination of a key character of the state can lead to the collapse of the system. Calls to arms of reservists and the declaration of the state of siege are rarely used measures, but with progressively greater frequency, because the Government can have an effective reserve force.

Barrayaran militarism

The Barrayaran backcountry life is still, on the wake of the 31st Century, characterised by a latent violence, also due to the still less-than-friendly environment. This historically led to a deeply militarised society. Conventionally, militarism in a society is identified by eight basic requirements:

• Military, as a distinct group, intervenes overtly or covertly in the process of political decision-making;
• Heavy emphasis on military ceremonial;
• Ideology supportive of military ideals;
• Regular inculcation of military ideals and values trough the educational system;
• Heavy State expenditure on military projects;
• Willingness to incur high causalities tolls in warfare;
• Readiness to commit the military in foreign and domestic conflicts;
• Extensive control over the life of society for military ends.

While the Vor ruling class is per se a warrior class who back in the Time of Isolation step in and assumed the political power, the Imperial Service and its members have been actively, openly and officially discouraged to take an active role in politics since the years of the Vorkosigan's Regency; the Hessman-Vordrozda conspiracy was the last attempt from an high-ranking officer to assume relevant positions of authority. Conversely, the formal and legal justification for the Emperor of Barrayar to rule the whole planet (and in perspective the whole Empire) is that he is the Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Military Service. Nowadays, on the wake of the XXXI century, with the gradual opening to merchant elite (mostly Komarran) and with the persisting growth of the civil bureaucracy, the relevance of the military as a distinct group in the political decision-making is increasingly fading away, at least in comparison with the XXIX standards.
Being a society who has always openly disregarded the public level of spirituality, and having a war-torn history, the Barrayaran culture is imbued with the militarisation of the existence; therefore, military ceremonials are the main public solemn occasions, and even real life passages are marked by military events, such as the conscription period. Officers - and to a lesser extent also troops - fully share the Vor class spirit in order to express and justify their own special interests and views.
The Barrayaran concept of "militarism", as it is been officially advertised, is a concept bearer of ethics that applies to the entire life of the Empire: all things having connections with discipline, wars and weapons are seen as essential to every other dimension of civilised life. The figure of the Soldier (in its broader meaning) occupies an autonomous position in the social life, in the service of the Emperor, and, through him, of the Empire. The purely heroic and warrior element is considered as a value in itself and functional political life. The Vor class itself is a warrior caste, and the warrior ethics were developed within the Vor ideologues.
The "warrior" view of life is lived as a naturally higher ideal and it is seen, with the military ethic naturally connected, as being fit to give the shape and tone of the whole State. The "warrior" view of life cannot be reduced solely to the profession of arms, but may have other expressions because having a warrior view of life is having a general and all-encompassing "style", which may also extend into other domains of the daily life. This view of life consists of love of hierarchy and discipline, relations of command and obedience, sense of honour and loyalty, love for the distance, specific forms of active impersonality capable of developing up to the anonymous sacrifice, clear and loyal relationships, impatience with the empty words with and simple discussion.
To the induce masses to march to war, the propaganda is necessary only in part because the Barrayaran population is still largely hierarchical; often it is enough that the command of a recognized Chief and the reference to the principles of loyalty and honour are well advertised.

Eating

Eating is of the Earth European type, with Barrayaran adaptations and variants of Earth traditional foods. Both French and Greek Barrayarans have a major stake into cheese and yogurt dishes and foods, while Barrayarans of both Russian and English descent are more inclined toward wheat and corn. Fresh vegetables are widespread during spring and summer, although the galactic cultivation techniques allow a constant fresh vegetables flood. Barrayar has also an extensive viticulture, especially on the central and southern areas of the Northern Continent, due to their Mediterranean-like climate; Sergyaran wines are still too few reduced to be considered in an Imperium-wide perspective. Also eating utensils are of Earth European origin: forks, knives, spoons are widely used. Alcohol is a major stance in the Barrayaran eating and drinking habits, especially in the backcountry during winter.
Men and women, of all ages, usually eat together if they are of the same social group: corporation, class, rank or - mostly - family. In major noble houses, usually servants eat separately from lords or masters, but this traditional rule is not mandatory nor perceived as a grantor of social prestige. Due to the recurring famines in past times, meat is still considered a rich food within ordinary people, although traditional foods for Wintefair include breads with cardamom and hot brillberry syrup. However, also due to the toxicity of the Barrayaran plants, vegetarianism is very rare.
Diners usually sit around a long rectangular table. The seat of the head of the table is considered the seat at the end farthest from the kitchen and it is usually occupied by the householder. An honoured female guest usually would sit at the immediate right of the head of the table, while the male guest would sit at the immediate right of the householder's wife. The hospitality is sacred: within the most traditional people, a guest is formally welcomed by giving him bread and salt.

Family

Family is the social minimum unit, and it is not uncommon to see several generations living under the same roof, or at least very close each other. An average middle class couple has three or four children, and if a family has only one child it's because it has suffered of the life circumstances. The upper class retains the tradition of providing several sons to Imperial armies. Traditionally, all immediate relatives attend the birth, although only female relatives (both of the father and of the mother) are present in the delivery room, together with the midwife.
Families have also the exclusive responsibility of raising and educating children, at least until the beginning of mandatory schools: the upper class families often chose private preceptors, at least for the first years. Children are treated, at least in lower and middle classes, as children, while within the Vor class they are formally considered as mini-adults: their formal uniforms are the same of their adult counterparts, only smaller in size.
The Barrayaran family attitude is underlined even by dances: Barrayaran dances are strictly male-female partner dances. The Barrayaran society is based upon, at all its levels, on family and personal connections: merit is sought, but the social structure is made up of family ties, both for the prole of the Caravanserai and for the government of a backcountry District. An individual without a family, or son of a prostitute is relegated to society margins. However, a more individualistic approach is spreading, due to both military service, which is an opportunity for redemption, and to the new galactic values, spread among the city middle-upper class people.
Family and, more in general, inter-personal nearness is deeply felt also at the moment of death and of dead remembrance: one the most felt mourning ceremonies is the burning offerings to the dead. This is an intimate ceremony which includes the burning on a metal tripod of scented bark and wood shavings, alongside with a mat of hair clippings atop. The hair mat is the most traditional thing to burn, but the ceremony and its significance require simply that a personal thing be burnt. After the ceremony, relatives, friends and guests bear small gifts.
Barrayaran orphans are mostly raised by their close relatives: parents' siblings or orphans' grandparents, or even cousins. If an orphan is without family, each District has its own orphanage system, which raise them until the age of twenty. Also military orphanages do exist, and provide a steady flow of career servicemen. If an abandoned child is found, it is considered as being an orphan, and then sent to local orphanage. Orphanage children are trained to get a job as soon as possible, but for those are suited for, the university is District or State funded: however, many of them choose the Imperial Service as their new family.

Housing

Barrayaran urban middle-lower classes prefer living in traditional three-floor through terraces houses, with small but prosperous gardens. Such houses are joined together into rows, while urban middle class prefers living in small independent houses, surrounded by an high wall, which also encloses a quiet garden. Only poor working-class families and unmarried employees live in apartment buildings, although even in Vorbarr Sultana or in other new cities house prices are very low, due to the abundance of space. On the other hand, the rich who can not afford a villa usually reside in large apartments in luxurious palaces.
Whether they are detached or independent, all the average houses are structured on three floors, including the ground floor. The ground floor has the function of public façade of the house: at the ground floor, there are the public spaces as the entrance, the antechamber, the living room, the library, often placed in the living room, the dining room, the kitchen, and if the people living there is a professional, the study open to the public. The first floor houses the private rooms for daytime: private studies, the reading room, the room devoted to music and a bathroom. Finally, the second floor contains the bedrooms, cloakroom and one or more bathrooms. The laundry can be housed either on the ground floor and in the cellar, if it is present. Anyway, solutions vary greatly. Rooms are square, not too large, in order to keep warmth; however, in warmer regions they tend to be quite larger.
Barrayaran rural houses are quite different: buildings - both in wood and stone - are long and thin, with two doors and a fireplace at each end. Each door opens onto a small veranda, surrounded by a balustrade.
As most of the Barrayaran society, furniture is usually built to last for generations. Therefore, it usually is elaborately carved and, especially in the southernmost regions of the Northern Continent, brightly painted. Most furniture pieces are solid wood, and traditional furniture in an average family includes beds with bed-curtains, long tables and soft armchairs.

Homophobia

Due to heavy male-warrior ideology, homosexuality is spread mostly within the Vor warrior caste. However, the scarce planetary population led to the heavy commitment to form a family; therefore homosexuality is silently accepted only within the upper-most layer of society, but carefully kept silent, and no one would risk to have an open homosexual relationship.

Anti-mutant sentiment

Due to the limited genetic pool from the original colonists, and the poisonous native biology, mutations became very frightening. Eventually, infants showing signs of mutation are killed to prevent the spread of the mutation to the gene pool as a whole.
It is deeply ingrained in most Barrayarans minds that any mutation is terrible. Even the gengineered Haut race of Cetaganda bothers the Barrayarans because they are intentional mutations. Being a "Mutie" is still considered a terrible slur. Killing mutants is prohibited, though "muties" are still despised by many Vor and plebes for being genetically "impure".

Fealty

Barrayaran Counts take oaths of fealty from the residents of their Districts and their personal bodyguards, known as Armsmen. The oath of a resident is necessarily less formal and personal than that of an Armsman, and may consist simply of signing a document. Residents can easily switch their oaths to another District, causing Counts to compete with each other to improve the living conditions of residents. The oath of an Armsman or other Vassal is more formal and direct. It is taken in the feudal manner, with the vassal's hands placed between those of the liege.

Arranged marriages

Many Barrayaran families, especially the traditionalists, arrange marriages for their children using a go-between known as a Baba. These are women, and at the highest levels they are professionals who guard their reputations. The damsel asked to marry the proponent retains the right to refuse.
A Baba is issued from the male suitor's family to formally propose to the potential bride. During the period of betrothal, the Baba serves as a mediator between the families and as a chaperone between all meetings between the two suitors, who remain segregated until the wedding. Part of the purpose of the Baba is to maintain a formalised, chaste relationship between the pair to ensure any children born would provably not be the future groom's.
The arranged marriage is a mainly Vor thing, although Baba is considered as an essential part of the deal in Barrayaran way.

Golden Leaves Day

Golden Leaves Day is an annual holiday celebrating the harvest and other thanksgiving of the past year. Over time, Golden Leaves Day became a mix of religious and non-religious attitudes, approaches and practices. Golden Leaves is a legal holiday; it is celebrated on the fourth week of second-last month. Because of the long standing traditions of the holiday, the celebration often extends to the weekend that falls closest to the day it is celebrated. The festival is common among internal regions farmers and agricultural districts. Farmers and peasants build wood towers leaving a hole for a flag-pole in the centre so that they may raise their colours. When the flags over the many peat-constructed towers are raised, farmers would go to others' towers and attempt to level them to the ground. A successful attempt brings great praise. However, people are allowed to defend their towers, and so everyone is provided with a "tooting-horn" to alert nearby country folk of the impending attack and the battle turn into a "brawl". Sometimes some people are injured, but in modern times the brawls are conducted in a quasi-non-violent way. At the day's end, races are held, with prizes given to the townspeople.

Dressing

Dress codes are written and unwritten rules with regard to clothing. The dress code has built in rules or signals indicating the message being given by a person's clothing and how it is worn. This message may include indications of the person's gender, income, occupation and social class, political, ethnic and religious affiliation, attitude and attitude towards comfort, fashion, traditions, gender expression, marital status, sexual availability, and sexual orientation, etc.
On Barrayar, certain types of clothing are worn exclusively or predominantly by either men or women. For example, the wearing of a skirt is associated with female dress, while trousers are associated with male dress. Hairdressing also conforms to a dress code, such as long hair for women and short hair for men. Ethnic (i.e. language-based communities) costumes and styles in clothing and ornament declare membership in a certain village, class, social position within a class, etc. In Barrayaran culture, dress codes are highly codified with essentially fixed definitions, while the more casual and the less formal classifications change very quickly, as fashion trends dictate. In practical use, people wear similar clothing in the same situations. Alternatively, at more formal events where a dress code is specified, invitees wear clothes at the specified level; if some variation is permitted, the host will wear the most formal option to save guests the embarrassment of out-dressing him. Appropriate ethnic or District dress is almost always permitted, as well as military uniforms, which are universally accepted, while Vor House uniforms are accepted within the Vor class.
In the dress codes, there are four wearing classes:

• Ceremonial dress and Court dress
• Full dress
• Half dress
• Cocktail dress

Mythology

Barrayar's mythology is varied. Military and cultural heroes from the planet's recent and distant past are celebrated, along with a number of carry overs from Old Earth culture, including Russian fairy tales and Greek mythology. The main holidays celebrated on Barrayar are the Emperor's Birthday, Midsummer Review, and Winterfair, where the coming of Father Frost is eagerly awaited by all Barrayaran children.

Rural backwardness

Even nowadays, after centuries of contact with the rest of the Galaxy, in rural areas and in regions distant from major cities, a general state of backwardness and hostility towards the galactic values. While in the great plains of this condition is relative backwardness, and especially focuses on the pride of the points of greatest strength of both Barrayaran and local culture, in the mountainous areas (Black Mountains and especially on the slopes of the Dendarii Mountains), backwardness is much more pronounced and is accompanied by a serious economic lagging against the entire planet. During the XXIX Century a general upgrade was obtained, but Dendarii slopes (and their adjacent Districts) still suffer the lagging.
Such highlanders are perceived as backward, quick to violence, and inbred in their isolation. The highlander stereotype reached its current characterization during the years of the great economic growth during Yuri's and Ezar's reigns, when many mountaineers left their homes to find work in other areas of the planet. The period of Dendarii out-migration saw many mountain residents moving North to the Mid-northern and Southern industrial cities and Districts. The movement brought these migrants into mainstream culture. The misrepresentation of Dendarii people in the media has led to a cultural distortion of Dendarii beliefs, practices, and lifestyle. The general derogatory view of the cities inhabitant depicts Northern Highlanders (i.e. those of the Northern Continent highs) as genetically deficient, inbred and murderous.

Ruralism and Deep Barrayar

Deep Barrayar is a phrase and an intellectual concept that denotes the existence of "deep", and profoundly "Barrayaran" aspects of the culture of Barrayaran provincial towns, of Barrayaran village life and rural agricultural culture, which escape the "dominant ideologies" and the hegemony of modern and large cities, perceived as somewhat opposed to what of authentically Barrayaran it exists. The concept of Deep Barrayar does imply an explicit opposition to modernism and industrialisation; despite the variety of the Barrayaran cultures, it is recognised a common root: "Deep Barrayar" is seen to be profoundly localist and ruralist in outlook and to be strongly opposing to interstellar/Nexus mass culture.
This concept was developed, in a covert but steady opposition to the total mobilisation State, during the last years of Emperor Ezar's reign, and fully blossomed in the early years of the Vorkosigan Regency. While this concept was formalised and systematised by several scholars and intellectuals (writers, journalists and thinkers) of the Southern Plains, it was originated by the middle to low level intellectual class present in the rural regions. The main works related to the concept of "Deep Barrayar" are the essay "Community vs. Society: a comparative analysis" of Gurient Trescott and the Shakespearean play "Count Vordred" of Agamemnon Vlastimil Konstantinovich.