In my campaign, I have a vassal knight looking for a husband for his younger sister. I know in the future, many knights will be wanting to arrange marriages for their daughters. What are some ways you have handled this>

I'd go with degrees of seperation from power for a suitor's status. Women being on equal power level to men is rare, so my advice would be to keep the most eligible suitor one rung higher than the lady in question.

0 Degrees: 1-3 Manor Heiress or Female Knight, Suitor = Rich Knight / Minor Lord

1 Degree: Sister or Daughter of PK, Suitor = Ordinary Landed Knight

2 Degrees: Niece or Aunt of PK, Suitor = Pensioned (higher than usual upkeep) Household Knight, or a Poor Landed Knight

3 Degrees: Cousin of PK = High-Ranking Esquire; Steward/Majordomo/Butler/Man-at-Arms/Gentleman-Farmer

4 Degrees: Kinswoman = Wealthy member of the merchant class, or a Freeholding commoner.


If the lady is exceptionally ugly or unpleasant, shift the suitor down one level. If you are trying to get the lady Married in a hurry no questions asked for delicate reasons, shift the suitor down 2 levels, to the minimum of level 4.

If you have The Book of Entourage, v. 1.3 (I believe, the newest one), it has rules for the younger daughters of vassal knights, too.

As a rule of thumb:
Eldest daughter: biggest dowry, marries the class of the father.
Younger daughters: smaller dowry, marries a step down.

However, if the PK is willing to contribute to a larger dowry (equivalent to the eldest daughter) for his sister/younger daughters, then they would be treated as the eldest daughter, more or less.

You can think about it more or less like this:

1) For each vassal knight, there is an heir and an eldest daughter. So those numbers are, on average, the same.
2) Some women die in childbirth, but knights die in war, too. If we simplify and assume those numbers are roughly the same, too, again on average we have equal numbers of surviving knights and wives.
3) The widower knight (or the younger brother, the spare, who would inherit) would likely seek a new wife. This might be an opportunity for younger daughters. However, there are potentially also non-related widows, who would be quite desirable matches (potentially experienced stewards, of proven fertility, with widow's portion income). (At least in our campaign, the widowed ladies are prime candidates for the distinguished household knights to marry with the liege's blessing, which acts to take the widows out of the marriage market and leave some space for the younger daughters.)

What this does mean is that there simply isn't a big surplus of vassal knights to marry younger daughters of other vassal knights, in general. The unmarried vassal knights can hold out for the best possible matches (eldest daughters with larger dowries). However, there are other things that might elevate the younger daughter's chances:
A) Increased dowry: easiest thing to do, just make the dowry equivalent to an eldest daughter and the playing field is levelled.
B) Politics: Is the PK Glorious? Liked & trusted by the (common) liege? Is the liege dropping some hints that this would be a good match? Does the potential suitor like/owe a favor to the PK?
C) Lady herself: Appearance is the big one, but also personality, reputation, compatibility with the suitor. And of course her own opinion on the suitor as well; consent is a biggie when marrying, although it is obviously possible for the brother/father to pressure the girl to do what is required for the good of the family.

After BotE / BotW, and the lowering of the number of landed knights, all of the above becomes even harder. If Salisbury has around 100 manors, that implies maybe 10 - 20 vassal knights, of whom the PKs take around 5. So it will become very difficult to find local, unmarried vassal knights for the younger daughters (especially after the first non-eldest daughter or sister), unless the ABC above are strongly in PKs' favor. After the establishment of Camelot, Pentecost becomes the main gathering of the knights and their unmarried sisters/daughters, allowing introductions & marriages more easily across county lines. And before that, Uther's spring court, of course. This helps the PKs, since it widens their hunting grounds, so to speak. And it also helps the poor GM who doesn't have to worry about overpopulating the vassal knights of Salisbury.

To Summarize:
- The numbers of vassal knights and eldest daughters are about even.
- The younger daughters would not normally marry within their own class, but a step below.
- To marry within their class, the younger daughters would need suitable dowries and some work on the part of the PKs, it would not be a default.

I like Mr47's rule of thumb, and appreciate Morien's lengthy explanation. These are both excellent resources for me. Thank you.

I'd like to run another scenario past you, exposing my ignorance of all things medieval :)

Could it be possible for the Count to come along and strongly suggest that marrying his daughter to Sir X the Count's loyal vassal would be a good idea?

Could it be possible for the Count to come along and strongly suggest that marrying his daughter to Sir X the Count's loyal vassal would be a good idea?

Sure! He can't force the issue without stepping outside the bounds of propriety, but he can make his recommendation, which, if the PK is politically savvy, is as good as an order.

To get back to Morien's point about the ratio of ladies to gentleman, I personally imagine it's closer to 2:1 than 1:1, at least when we're talking about "the most eligible candidates", not just all men and women in general.

Ladies have a much shorter window of desirability than men do, it's one of the ancient and unfortunate double standards. Unless the lady in question is a lady of property, I would think her courting years are firmly in the 16-25 range, 30 would certainly be pushing right into 'old maid'. Gentlemen on the other hand are like water, they can wait. A man can continue to be an eligible bachelor from 21-40. And sure, a widow can continue to entertain marriage offers past that range with her dower, but not much past 40, whereas a widower of any class can keep trying until he drops dead.With those age ranges in mind, it would seem to me that the pool of eligible suitors outnumbers the number of suitees 2:1.

As to the number of children per couple, the BoE survival and childbirth table paints a pretty optimistic picture, a little under 5 born and making it to adulthood. 1 Heir, 1 Eldest Daughter, 1 Spare, 1 Younger Daughter, and less than 1 Prayer (either Priest or Nun, depending on gender).

With the prayers unavailable, and with men being able to wait twice as long for marriage, both the eldest and younger daughters should in theory be able to find vassal knight husbands, one marrying a younger knight, the other an older knight. The Spares of the world then find wives among the nieces and widowed aunts of vassal knights, or daughters of household knights, and the sons of spares make do with the cousins and kinswomen of other knights, or commoners.

Alas, Mr.47, your math doesn't work save for the hypothetical first generation. After that, by waiting longer, those old vassal knights are not marrying anyone, resulting in half of the eldest daughters not marrying vassal knights. And only half of the younger daughters would find old husbands, too. (Although in practice the generations are more continuous so those younger daughters would still compete against young eldest daughters.)

Your math would work only if the vassal knights would be able to divorce and marry again.

I'll type out an example when I have a moment.

You bring up a good point, and it's true that people don't get divorced, but they do die. Depending on if you are using BoE rolls or 5.1 rolls, either %5 of wives under 40 die every year or %10 do, which is frankly quite alarming and I'm glad that's been adjusted.

Say an average knight marries as 25, and an average lady marries at 20.

If we accept the more reasonable figures and suppose that both husbands and wives drop dead at a %5 yearly rate, women from childbirth and men from battle, then there ought to be an equal number of widows and widowers at say, age 30, since the men have been knights for 10 years and the women have been married 10 years, then at a %5 mortality rate there ought to be half of each. There are several differences between a widower and a widow, the first is that a widow is more apt to stay such, the second is that if a widow does remarry it will be at her lord's decision, probably below herself to a worthy household knight, as a reward. In either case, a 30 year old widow is invariably out of the suitor pool of landed knights, but a 30 year old widower is still in the running.

Of course, by 30 half the men have died as well, so if half the men are still alive and half of those have dead wives, then %25 of 30+ knights are on the prowl.

If you use the catastrophic childbirth rolls of 5.1 where young women have a 1 in 10 chance of dying annually, then there ought to be twice as many widowers as widows, and %50 of knights over 30 are back on the market.

Ergo, depending on the system, there are 1.25 to 1.5 eligible bachelors to every 2 bachelorettes. Every eldest daughter ought to marry a vassal, between half and a quarter of younger daughters do the same, the rest marrying a rung lower.

I don't think this contradicts my original point about "who is the most eligible suitor" since men can suit several women at once and vice versa, it just means that realistically attaining the most eligible suitor is a crapshoot, for which dowry, wit, charm, and attractiveness are everything.

You bring up a good point, and it's true that people don't get divorced, but they do die. Depending on if you are using BoE rolls or 5.1 rolls, either %5 of wives under 40 die every year or %10 do, which is frankly quite alarming and I'm glad that's been adjusted.

My pet peeve in KAP 5.1, alongside with the insanely high child mortality. I am very glad it got fixed in BotE (although the female mortality in childbirth is still too high, IMHO). That is for another discussion, though.



Ergo, depending on the system, there are 1.25 to 1.5 eligible bachelors to every 2 bachelorettes. Every eldest daughter ought to marry a vassal, between half and a quarter of younger daughters do the same, the rest marrying a rung lower.

I don't think this contradicts my original point about "who is the most eligible suitor" since men can suit several women at once and vice versa, it just means that realistically attaining the most eligible suitor is a crapshoot, for which dowry, wit, charm, and attractiveness are everything.


Yep, I could accept a number like 25%. It means that the younger daughters are, if they are lucky, likely marrying an older vassal knight who already has heirs from the first marriage. Also, they are competing against 3 of their peers for this match, so will need to stand out somehow, like you already pointed out.

When I used the mortality tables in the core book I solved the excessive mortality rates by only rolling for children until age 5 and by treating a 'mother dies' result as a mortal wound. So if you had a skilled healer the lady could recover though she would possibly lose three points from her stats.

On the BoE table I'm fine with the general survival rate.