Lore Musings: lifemates and bonding

[Feralan]

Hey all, I decided to resurrect the old idea of pitching a (usually Kaldorei-realted) lore question and seeing what opinions people share on it. So, here's the first:

Going by the old statement that Kaldorei do not marry but take mates for life (which frankly I for one like far better than making every "alien" species have a human-style marriage), how do you think such bonds are confirmed by the couple in question? Is it all highly individual and private, or do you see a ritual aspect to it as well? How did the bondmates in your character(s) background story go about it?

[Azsunia]

Well, the way Blizzard is taking care of the lore, I cant tell if Night Elves marry or dont marry. In one of the books, Tyrande did marry Malfurion.

However I think that marriage, for a certain culture, may not be the typical Christian ritual we are so use to see.
I think a Kaldorei "marriage" would perhaps be a private moment, maybe with a few loved ones to witness it, to thank and honor the goddess for allowing them, the couple, to have come together and show her how they love each other.

The bond my character has with her life mate took time to build. From the moment they met, to the moment they could call themselves lifemates, it took several time where they had to learn about each other, etc. It was probably by spending time with him, a druid, that she became closer to that path and eventually embrace it herself.
Azsunia likes to keep the relationship with her mate as private as possible, but partly because she grew in a reclusive way.

[Feralan]

Cheers, Sunia. The preference for privacy definitely sounds like something she got from her mother. And yes, I think taking one's time to really get to know each other is probably even more important to the night elves than to us.

What "they don't marry but take lifemates" always meant to me is, mainly, that couples don't need anyone's permission or anyone to officially "tie them together" in a legally binding contract -- it's their private choice, and they do it for and by themselves, in the way that is most meaningful to them. Some examples I came up with for how those "lifemate bonds" were sealed in Fera's family:

Great-grandparents: They made a kind of pilgrimage to watch the moon rise over the Well of Eternity and said a few words to each other there.

Grandparents: No bond here; her grandmother wanted a child but didn't feel drawn to anyone as a lifemate.

Parents: Both woodworkers, they built their shared home together (well, made all the furniture, tools and decorations and asked the wisps to "grow" the house itself), then asked for Elune's blessing on it and them.

Anyone else with thoughts on the issue?

[Carindia]

Hm, this is a intresting subject so I'll comment on it even after all this time! I think it is really a much more elongated and more informal thing, and I think when they get "married" it's a private statement of how things have become between the two people involved. I also imagine due to how long the Kaldorei live, it's a much more gradual thing where they are becoming lifemates after all the achual psychological bonding has taken place, so it's more of a statement of how things are, not what they are intending to become.

I think that from them being so long lived and what we have seen of Malfurion and Tyrande (warcraft 3 is mostly what I am thinking of) that it is more of a companiable relationship - for the two people involved it is much more a case of stating that one person will be able to rely on the other than it is designed for raising children. Also from this I think it must be a much more certain thing that once a pair of Kaldorei become lifemates, and that unlike in human society there isn't the same worry about one of them going off with someone else. After all, the bond survives when one of the two has been asleep in the emerald dream for thousand years! This would also suggest to me that the bond formed isn't much to do with having children and is more for the nessecery occasional companionship and support - any bond formed for having children is bound to be much more volitile. I'd also add that this way of bonding is probally not from evolutionary as the night elves appear to have been magicly evolved from the well of eternity, so they did not have the same evolutionary pressures on evolving. That would further suggest that the entire setup would be informal as the deal of lifemates would probally be significantly different between different pairs, which would mean that there wouldn't be a set formal ceramony.

From this I'd also be tempted to suggest that the Kaldeori version of love is at least slightly different from the human one - much more profound and binding of the pair of people involved, and also taking a long time and not likely to form more than once, so there is not the same insecurity between the couple.

Hope this makes sence!