We recently had a death in our campaign, for a married PK with no children. The player brought in a new PK who is the first character's younger brother. He and the widow seem to be getting along quite well (critical Love (Family) roll on her part), and he raised the question of marrying her.

I'm just curious as to whether anyone on this forum has looked into these questions. There's Biblical evidence supporting a levirate marriage of this sort, but I don't know whether this was recognized in Dark Ages Britain. This might be a leg up for PKs, in some circumstances, as they can arrange to get the income from the widow's portion of an estate of a previous PK family member.

And no - the PK is British Christian, so "give money to the pope!" doesn't really work here.

In the absence of any responses, I'll just make up something. Any help would be appreciated.

Well, a critical Love (Family) roll by no means implies a romantic involvement. Love (Family) applies to one's children, parents — even squires and handmaidens. The woman could be mortified by the thought of a marrying her late husband's brother — (but you don't have to tell your player this! Let him broach the subject via a FLIRTING roll and let the chips fall where they may.) What are her beliefs, or what influence would her Teacher have over her? What does he believe? The Bible seems to condemn such marriages on one hand, and condone (or even mandate!) them, depending on what book your reading. The game rules don't deal with this explicitly anywhere, so really I think it's totally up to you on where you want to do with this. Do you want to discourage it? The Church is against it. Do you want to encourage it? The Church is for it. It all depends on how far-reaching you want this decision to be. You could either use it as the hub for all sorts of scandal and Intrigue, or it could be but a blip on the radar of your campaign.

Not only that but, if the deceased knight was a vassal knight, the Count Roderick or Countess Ellen will have a say in who she marries, so the PK's desires may not enter into it.

Other things to consider:

What would the woman's family think about it? They might try to stop a marriage at all costs.
What would the PK's family think about it? Same deal.
What if the woman's Teacher is in love with her? He'd try to keep them apart at all costs, cherry-picking the verses from the Bible that support his case. Maybe he says the Bible condemns it, but a successful RELIGION roll by the PK reveals verses of the Bible that say a widow MUST marry her husband's brother (Google it). Then what? Do you do an end-run around the local Teacher? That could be troublesome in the longrun...
Are there any other rivals for her? Can conflict be made from that? Maybe THEY make a stink about the unholiness of the proposed union. Could end up in a judicial duel situation.
Perhaps the PK has to go on a quest to find the answer to his conundrum.

There are all kinds of things you could do with this. For my part, I like going down these personal rabbit holes with my players and extracting every bit of drama that I can out of them. Other folks prefer to avoid them, because it requires more prep time and takes the focus away from the GPC (which is a good thing, IMO — because a personal story is a more engaging story). I mainly use the GPC as a "living campaign" backdrop to the personal stories of my PKs. The GPC is always there, sure, but the PKs weave in and out of the scripted events as needed.

Hope that helps.


T.

Taliesin already gave a great response. (As an aside, I agree that the personal stories are more rewarding, since the PKs often end up being just the audience of the Big Story. But when they get to do big stuff themselves, too, that is very much fun.)

I'll just add that Medieval Catholic Church was deadset against this. Even carnal relations between a man and a woman could establish a 'consanguinity bond' (i.e. she is treated as if she were the sister to the man's brother's after that), let alone a valid marriage. The only reason why Henry VIII got a dispensation to marry his brother's widow (Catherine of Aragon) was that she swore up and down that that marriage to Prince Arthur was never consummated and that she was still a virgin. (Of course it probably helped that the Pope needed the good will of Spain at the time, too.)

But like Taliesin said, it is your story. I actually prefer playing fast and loose with the consanguinity restrictions, since it allows me more scope to doling out the widows. Not that it has been a HUGE problem yet, even though one widow is now on her third husband (all unrelated). There was a bit of an iffiness going on there with one of the PK's (now deceased) going for her daughter, even though her second husband was the PK's (deceased) older brother... I decided not to bother with making it more difficult, but then the PK went and got himself killed, hence pre-empting that plotline.

To be clear, my roll on Love (Family) was to see whether the wife would be a friendly or unfriendly presence to the brother. I rolled a critical, and decided to exploit the possibility for awkwardness.

Our PK, who is somewhat clueless, sought out advice of the clergy. Unfortunately, the first priest he asked was Father Dewi, who suggested he put aside fleshy temptations and become a monk. He asked Earl Roderick if this was a good idea, and his lord discouraged him.

Eventually he talked to the abbot of Amesbury, who offered to "look into" the matter and put forth the idea of building a nice church, which he is constructing right now. Unfortunately, when he asked Roderick for permission to marry, he fumbled his Courtesy, so the earl will be putting off his decision and looking at other candidates - maybe Sir Lycus...