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On Sartorias-deles all humans have universal birth control, and they use Gerda to override it to allow people to have only the children they choose. Custom with the force of law demands that the woman alert the man if birth is not a mutual decision. Though there is no concept of bastardy, women who've tried the "back door" method of getting inside a rich or influential family find themselves in trouble just about always. The child will be adopted in, but very seldom becomes heir, as that kind of decision tends to be a mutual decision in families. The social stigma would be on the mother for greed or unscrupulous behavior, and because sympathy would lie with the father who was not permitted a voice in the decision, she would have no hope of extracting payment.
Still, human nature being what it is, women have tried to trick children from unwilling men. The gerda herb does change one's personal scent slightly, and if a man knows the scent, he can take warning. Perfume is resorted to by someone determined to get around custom and law. It happens fairly seldomly, because there is almost never any immediate reward for the mother.
They also have the Birth Spell which allows people to have babies alone. The Birth Spell enables men, or anyone, actually, to give birth to a child by using a specific form of the spell. Again, this is only achieved with the aid of the indigenous beings, and their contribution is still debated in contemporary times, for with their added magic anyone could have a child—if they “heard” the Spell. A healer or mage could only give them the beginning; the rest would come or not, and no one has ever successfully determined why the spell either completes or doesn’t. (For the curious, the DNA derives from a single parent’s past, or from a blending of both partners if two people handfast and complete the spell.) The child appears at proper term, which argues for the magic including manipulation of time and space of which only the indigenous life forms have mastery. [1]
Because the early mages eradicated all STDs, this is not an issue on this world.
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