Being a record of the customs observed by the noble houses of Irna in matters of marriage, house naming, succession, and familial right — customs not decreed by any single sovereign but observed by common practice across the kingdoms for as long as records have been kept. Precedent is their authority. The houses that honor them are honored in return.

When two noble families are joined in marriage, the house shall carry forward the name of the more prestigious family. Custom calls this the brighter name — the one that has gathered more weight through history, rank, land, or crown favor. Where two families are of genuinely equal standing, the matter is settled by negotiation between the houses before the union is formalized. The joined couple does not deliberate this question alone; it is the business of both families, and it is expected to be resolved before the ceremony takes place. Once resolved, the decision stands, and both parties are expected to honor it without qualification.

The incoming spouse — the one whose family name yields — takes the name of the higher house as their own. They do not maintain dual naming, nor do they append their birth name to the house name in formal address. In private life and family memory the birth house may be acknowledged; in all matters of title, court, and record, the married name prevails.

The marriage does not dissolve the difference in prestige that determined the naming; it institutionalizes it. The spouse from the higher-prestige family holds the primary position within the union — socially, politically, and in matters of governance where their noble authority is the operative one. The spouse from the lower-prestige family serves in a supporting role, regardless of gender.

This is not understood as a diminishment. The lower-prestige spouse brings to the union resources, connections, labor, and loyalty that the higher family values; the arrangement acknowledges the asymmetry honestly rather than pretending it does not exist. Houses that attempt to negotiate around this convention — insisting on equal authority within the union without a corresponding equality of prestige — tend to produce households marked by internal disorder, which the custom regards as the natural consequence of dishonesty at the foundation.

When the person to be married holds the position of heir to a ruling house, the convention shifts in one specific respect: the heir does not yield their name under any circumstance. The heir keeps the house name absolutely. The spouse joins the house under that name and may hold a title — King, Queen, Lord, Lady — but the authority of the heir's position does not transfer to them by virtue of the title. The heir rules; the spouse supports the rule.

The incoming spouse's role in heir marriages is understood to be ceremonial and supportive unless the heir explicitly grants additional authority by formal instrument. What the incoming spouse contributes to the union is presence, alliance, and the political connection their birth family represents — and that contribution is acknowledged through the right of audience described below.

When a family gives one of its members to a ruling house through marriage, that family does not lose all connection to the power their child now stands beside. Custom grants the birth family a right of audience with the ruling spouse: they may request to be received, and the ruling spouse is obligated to receive them when the request is made through proper channels.

The right of audience is access, not influence. The ruling spouse is under no obligation to grant requests, act on petitions, or alter policy on the birth family's behalf. They are required to receive, to listen, and to respond with the dignity appropriate to their station — and no more. What cooperation the birth family actually receives will depend, in practice, on how the spouse within the marriage has been treated. This too is part of the convention's logic: a family that treats its married-out member well tends to find the door open; one that treats them as an instrument tends to find it closed.

The right of audience does not survive the death of the marriage. If the spouse from the birth family dies, the surviving ruling spouse retains no formal obligation to that birth family unless a separate instrument has been agreed.

Within a noble house, the heir marries first. This is not a preference or a guideline; it is, by the weight of precedent across the kingdoms, as near to law as custom can become without being written into a statute. The heir's marriage establishes the house's next identity, determines the naming conventions that will govern the next generation, and sets the political alignments that will hold for years or decades. That business must be settled before the house's other children are given away in marriages that are necessarily secondary to it.

The spares — the children who are not heirs — wait. Their matches may be planned in advance and even promised informally, but they do not marry before the heir has wed. A house that violates this order is understood to have made a statement about its priorities and its regard for the heir's position, and that statement is noticed.

The convention of the brighter name is not, in all cases, absolute. When a non-heir child of a prestigious house is to be married to a family of lesser standing, the terms can be altered by negotiation. The lower-prestige family may petition to carry their own name forward — or for the non-heir to take it — in exchange for a larger dowry, favorable contract terms, or some other consideration offered to the higher house. This is understood as a transaction, not a violation of the convention: the higher house's name has value, and the lower house is purchasing, in effect, the right to retain its own.

These negotiations are conducted before the match is finalized and are formalized in the wedding contract. Once the contract is signed, the naming arrangement it specifies is binding regardless of which convention it follows. A house that agrees to a naming exception for dowry and then seeks to reverse that exception after the marriage has no standing in custom or courtesy.

The kingdoms of Irna contain noble houses governed by elves, dwarves, humans, and others whose natural lifespans differ considerably — and marriages between these peoples occur with enough frequency that custom has developed conventions for their particular complications. What follows represents observed practice rather than any formal ruling, as no single authority has governed this question across all the kingdoms.

On naming and precedence: The conventions of prestige and the brighter name apply without modification to interspecies unions. A human who marries into an elven house of higher standing takes that house's name; an elf who marries into a human house of higher standing takes that house's name. Lifespan does not affect prestige, and prestige determines the name.

On the death of the shorter-lived spouse: When the shorter-lived spouse dies while the longer-lived spouse survives, the house identity does not dissolve. The surviving spouse retains the married house name and continues to govern under it. The children of the union retain the house name. The longer-lived spouse may, after a period considered appropriate by the custom of their people, enter into a second marriage — the conventions of prestige and naming apply to that second union as to any other.

On the right of audience after the spouse's death: The right of audience held by the shorter-lived spouse's birth family does not transfer to that family's heirs upon the spouse's death. The right was granted by virtue of the marriage bond, and the bond's end dissolves it. The surviving spouse retains no formal obligation to the birth family, though continued courtesy is regarded as appropriate when the prior marriage was honorable.

On succession among children of mixed heritage: Where heirs are born of mixed-lifespan unions — the half-elven child of an elf and a human, for example — succession proceeds by birth order and the fitness the house's elders recognize, not by the child's anticipated lifespan. A half-elven child is not passed over for a shorter-lived sibling on the grounds that the shorter-lived sibling will be available to rule sooner. Custom regards lifespan as a circumstance, not a qualification.

On the difficulty of the long marriage: A long-lived spouse who watches a shorter-lived partner age and die occupies a position that the convention addresses only obliquely. What it does say is this: the grief of such a loss is not a failure of judgment on either party's part, and a house that produced a union of genuine partnership between people of different lifespans has served itself and Irna well, regardless of what comes after. The quality of the years matters. The convention does not pretend otherwise.

These conventions are observed throughout the kingdoms of Irna. They are enforced by no court and commanded by no statute, but violations are noted, and a house that disregards them without formal negotiation finds that other houses remember. Memory, in Irna, functions as law often does not.