Santairiku Eiyuuki v1i1: Lemurian Marriage Law

“Carolina, how has it been with His Majesty lately?”

“W-What do you mean, Father?”

“No need to be shy~ I’m talking about your nightlife with His Majesty, duh~”

It was late in the night at the Galeanos residence in Nova Lemuria. Two women and one man were sitting around a table.

One of the women was the recently betrothed fiancee of the Lemurian Emperor, Carolina Galeanos. The man was a general belonging to the Lemurian Empire, Garphis Galeanos. And the other woman was Garphis’ wife, the lady of the house—Mary Galeanos.

“…Father.”

“W-Well… When these things don’t go smoothly, all sorts of problems will crop up, right? With the succession and such…”

Carolina’s disgusted gaze made Garphis falter. Her eyes were saying, “the heck are you asking your daughter when you are so serious normally.”

“…It’s going well between us, I suppose.”

Carolina blushed a little as she lifted the glass of wine to her mouth. Alcohol wasn’t the only thing that was making her cheeks flush red.

The Messianic faith sort of prohibited premarital sexual relations. “Sort of” because elves were by nature a free-spirited race. They also considered love important in marriage. Be that as it may, Lemurian Law stipulated that “having sex = consenting to marriage”, so if either party tried to back off after having done the deed then the other party could bring it to court.

“So, details?”

“…Mother, are you that interested in your daughter’s sex life?”

“Of course I am! After all, the population issue is of utmost importance to us elves.”

Elves were said to be the ideal race.

Long lifespan. High physical abilities. Keen senses. Abundant magic power. Excellent intellect. Beautiful appearance.

Elves founded nations all over the world and formed the ruling classes dominating those nations.

The Lemurian Empire’s rival, the Kingdom of Fars also had an elven ruling class. The Kingdom of Bulgaron as well was controlled by nomads and mixed-blooded elves.

Yet even the mighty elves possessed a weakness—a fatal one at that: their limited population.

A typical elf had three children at most over the two-hundred-year course of their lifetime. Three, even though they lived four times as long as humans did and were capable of conceiving children over a longer period.

Human commoners could have as many as ten children during their brief lifetime. Yet elves could only increase their population little by little.

On the other hand, the purer one’s elven blood was, the more magic power they possessed. In particular, only high elves and mixed people with relatively thick blood like Edmond could form a contract with the Seventy-Two Demons.

To sum up, elves as a race had two main concerns. Increasing population and maintaining their racial purity.

This made things surprisingly difficult.

If elves were too fixated on keeping their blood pure, they wouldn’t be able to increase their population.

The reason elves had low fertility was mainly due to female elves. Male elves paired up with other races actually had pretty high birth rates though not to the extent of human couples.

For elves to maintain their control over the Lemurian Empire, their population must stay over a certain number. This made the existence of half-elves essential. The problem was, the more half-elves there were, the thinner their elven blood would be. Thinner elven blood meant weaker magic and spirit arts, which then led to a decline in military and national strength.

These two problems were solved by the “father of the nation” who ended the civil war and toppled the Republican Lemuria to establish imperial rule. Nicknamed baldy, he was a womanizer who tended to get into debt.

Thanks to the Lemurian Marriage Law and the system of population inspectors laid down by that baldy, the population of elves had been rising slowly but steadily.

Although the Lemurian Marriage had been revised several times since its enactment, the core of it had remained the same.

In general, only monogamy was allowed. The age difference between a couple must be lower than 50. Adultery was punishable by death. In addition, the law stated that personal wishes should be respected as much as possible in the matter of marriage.

First of all, monogamy certainly helped in increasing the number of pure-breds. When it’s one-on-one rather than one man having a relationship with multiple partners, it was easier for the woman to get pregnant. It would be a different story if female elves overwhelmingly outnumbered men, but as it stood, the male to female ratio was 1:1.

If a couple differed too much in terms of age, when one person became unable to have sex anymore, the sexual functions of the other person would be “wasted”, so to speak. So the couple should be no more than 50 years apart in age.

The reason adultery was punished so severely was obviously that… an increase in healthy families would lead to healthy growth in population.

The above articles are the relatively normal ones in the Lemurian Marriage Law. Below are the more peculiar ones.

Concerning adultery.

Naturally, a married woman found laying with a male elf other than her husband was considered to have committed adultery. This also applied if the male she slept with belonged to another race.

Of course, a married man who slept with another female elf that was not his wife also committed adultery… not. Somehow, this situation was considered ‘rape’ rather than adultery.

In particular, if the girl was engaged or if she was an unmarried virgin, then the man would receive the death penalty regardless of whether both parties had consented to the act or not.

Again, sleeping with a woman belonging to another race was considered adultery… not. That’s right—it was totally OK for a married man to sleep with an extra-species girl.

The reason for this was to stimulate population growth. Making babies was put above all else.

Ethics, morals, personal wishes, to hell with these things. This law was laid down with such an aim.

By the way, it was in fact considered a national duty for a male high elf to make half-elven babies with women from other races. If he couldn’t father at least two such children, gossip about how he hadn’t fulfilled his duty would spread.

You’re probably thinking, “Hooray for harem!” But to be honest most male elves just found it bothersome, unpleasant, or sad.

They already had to sleep with their legal wife at least once every three days. If they failed to do so, they would receive a warning note from the “population inspector” in charge of supervising the sexual affairs of elven citizens (like their menstrual cycles, how frequent they have sex, etc.)

Consequently, they must perform their duty once every three days at the minimum.

It also felt rather unpleasant to be compelled to have sex with women from a race that they didn’t like.

In addition…

Those women nevertheless shared a bed with them and gave birth to their children. Seeing those women quickly age and die could inflict a heavy mental toll on male elves.

Incidentally, Garphis was the father of two half-elven children.

 

Now, let us get back to the story.

 

“We’re doing just fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“…It’s just that.”

Carolina hesitated for a moment, unsure what to say.

“Is there a problem?”

“…It’s no big deal, really.”

Carolina continued on after being troubled for words for a little while.

“How should I put it… He’s… extraordinary.”

“Isn’t that a good thing though?”

“What’s wrong with that?”

Mary and Garphis let out voices of relief.

If Hercule was revealed to be impotent, that would spell doom for the Empire. Rather than a problem, Hercule being “extraordinary” in bed was something to be happy about.

“It’s, well… pretty tough for me.”

“Is His Majesty bad at it?”

“No, he’s actually so skillful that I couldn’t believe it was his first time… Or rather, that definitely wasn’t his first time, was it?”

Carolina thought back upon the first night they shared. Thanks to Hercule’s expertise, she didn’t remember being in pain at all… but she had felt somewhat frustrated back then.

“So what is the problem?”

“Isn’t it a good thing that he is good at it?”

Garphis and Mary predictably showed puzzled expressions. With a beet red face, Carolina loudly exclaimed.

“He’s too good at it!! I don’t have enough stamina for him… I have never managed to stay conscious until the end.”

Garphis and Mary exchanged looks.

Carolina was an outstanding knight. In the whole of the empire, warriors on par with her could be counted on one hand. To think Hercule could force someone like Carolina to yield…

“His Majesty shows great promise here as well, huh…”

“The country’s future is secured, it seems.”

Garphis and Mary nodded with delight. Lemurian nobles all wished that Hercule would have as many children as possible, one or two hundred even.

“But to be serious, His Majesty may need another one.”

“But Carolina is the only girl his age… Ah, a baby was born recently, right?”

“That one is a boy… And the girl closest to Carolina’s age already has a fiance…”

In general, Lemurian Marriage Law only allowed monogamy. But that’s speaking in general. An exception to the law did exist.

The Emperor was that exception.

The Emperor and his chosen heir were allowed to get married to multiple high-elven girls. This was a measure to maintain the Julianos bloodline and the inherited magic “Autokrator” that were the conditions to inherit the Lemurian Throne.

(T/N: Autokrator is the same as Imperator mentioned in a previous chapter. For some reason the author changed the furigana from the Latin word to the Greek word. The Japanese word still translates to “Supreme Authority to Command”.)

There were various justifications for why the Lemurian Marriage Law was like that, but when you consider that the law was laid down by that bald, money-owing womanizer, the true motive quickly became clear.

The law might have been convenient for the bald first emperor, but for his descendants, it was a huge headache.

Male elves had to lay with their lawful wife at least once every three days. So if a man was wed to two wives, he was legally required to have sex twice every three days. If he was wed to three, then he must do it once a day.

…This clearly was the reason why Lemurian Emperors were often short-lived compared to common elves.

With all that said, there was no real need for concern since Hercule had “extraordinary” stamina. Taking two or three wives was no sweat for him.

The high-elven nobility—the Seventy-Seven Sacred Clans—including branch families, they numbered about 1,000. Of those only Carolina and that recently born baby boy were under 20.

There was no suitable bachelorette available, but it is what it is.

“…We still haven’t gotten married yet, why are you two thinking about his next marriage partner already…”

“That can’t be helped. Your fiance is the Emperor after all.”

“His Majesty wouldn’t like a partner selected by us anyways, so there is no point in thinking about it. If worst comes to worst, you just have to make love to His Majesty once a day.”

“…I’m gonna die for sure.”

Carolina heaved a deep sigh.

 

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Sorry, I intended to take a two-week break but somehow it’s been two months already. I really need to fix that procrastination habit of mine.

Anyway, you guys may already know this but volume 1 of Santairiku Eiyuuki light novel version came out recently (over a month ago, in fact). I have ripped the illustrations which you can check out here. Volume 1 covers basically everything I’ve translated so far. I haven’t gotten around to reading it yet so I can’t tell you if there’s any difference from the WN but going by the illustrations, I doubt there’s been any noticeable change.