Lashunta Pregnancy & Motherhood: Support under the Matriarchy

Most Lashunta females, on completion of their mandatory military maiden-service, choose to become a ~Rie~ wife, which has nothing to do with marriage. Instead, it means becoming a fully vested, adult female member of society. As part of the bridetide and ceremonial selection of their ~Daviras~ - First Man, they may also begin the journey to motherhood. Childbirth and child-rearing, although it may not need to be addressed much in role-playing games, becomes an important aspect of worldbuilding, since it is a critical component of all societies. Lashunta, as a matriarchal society, guarantee that mothers have the resources to safely raise and feed their children, even when they are physically limited by pregnancy and recent birth. Furthermore, they will extend their access to those resources for as long they deem it advantageous.   Yet this raises a question: how to ensure there is a social framework to support mothers, expectant, new, and advanced? I assume that Lashunta children develop roughly similarly to human children, and as such require a similar amount of care. Thus challenges such as healthcare and professional career-parental balance, with which human mothers are very familiar, exist as their own versions within Lashunta society.   As case in point, Lady Vaeol my narrator and an outrider officer, on her decision to become a wife and mother, fully expected to take a break from active military service. One likely option would be to transfer to an administrative staff role, even if not within the militia’s command, then possibly in a diplomatic or functionarial role within the city’s government. As a deduction from this example, Lashunta female entitlement (especially if Damaya) allows preferential assignment of low-risk, low-activity work roles to mothers, thereby allowing them to maintain their status.   Furthermore, one of my homebrew rules is that Lashunta females within their third pregnancy trimester and while their nursing exhibit a boost to their psychic powers, due to having a second mind linked with theirs as a resource (+2 Chr bonus, +2 bonus to all psychic affects). Even if physically limited, Lashunta mothers are sympathetically perceived by almost everyone they meet and can favorably draw on resources. Additionally, this may mean they have little trouble in attracting men to their household. Along with the above sympathetic effects, motherhood is a pretty obvious sign that a female is sexually active, which men may perceive as a benefit.   On a religious level, female social privilege is reinforced under the divine sanctity with which females are invested when they are perceived to be pregnant. This carries additional social privileges, even for expectant and new mothers who otherwise lack a home or other means of providing for themselves. Lashunta, as highly empathetic beings, may be highly sympathetic to the prospect of a babe being born in poverty. Lashunta temples could provide welfare to homeless mothers, and possibly even arrange access to resources (work in a business, possibly even a land-grant) to get them back socially productive contribution. The temples of ~Mahaere~ - Greenmonther (mother-goddess and Castrovel personified) also matronize the Midwife-Priest guilds, which under Matriarchy is the most prestigious medical profession to which one may aspire. Even in a Pathfinder / Lost Omens-era equivalent setting, this gives Lashunta mothers access to the best medical care their society can provide.   Another way that female privilege could guarantee resources is through land-ownership. To put it simply, land among Lashunta is owned by females, and cannot typically be owned by men. This gives females the right to decide who has access to their land, and moreover who has rights to the economic produce. Although I envisioned a lot of Lashunta territory may be communal, particularly undeveloped wildlands for hunting and fishing, when it comes to cultivated farmland, these rights and privileges are carefully managed. Furthermore, this has the potential to create a huge labor market, where females seek to attract males to work the labor and share profits, although with the females leveraging a distinct advantage. Lashunta men may have the right to decline the offer, and could reasonably make an independent living as hunters, fishers via communal resources, or by fulfilling some other kind of itinerant trade. This would limit, however, their opportunity to participate in long-term intimate relationships, including having children (and in this kind of social paradigm, we realize how expendable men truly are).   Lashunta may also engage in communal child-rearing, where a group of mothers raise their children together as a shared household. Essentially, families or households would form around two or more child-rearing mothers (sisters? older mother with adult daughter?) or lovers. They might run a farm or a business together. Males would join the household as satellite members, with their inclusion or departure having relatively little impact on the family’s core. This especially fits well with the non-nuclear, polyamorous relationship structure I have been exploring. In Lady Vaeol’s case, this means her housemates continue to serve the Citadel, thus helping to fulfill her obligation along with theirs while she is on maternity leave.   In sum, when it comes to motherhood, Lashunta Matriarchy means that females look out for each other and actively reinforce the entitlements they enjoy, on both formal and more informal, personal levels. Although this provides a social safety-net for mothers and their children, the downside, however, is that they also reinforce their society's sexual inequality as they consistently give preference to females over males, and moreover expect males to do so, as well.