A rock wife is the senior wife in ironborn culture, traditionally a freeborn woman from the Iron Islands. A man may also have multiple salt wives, women captured during raids on foreign lands.[1]
Traditions
While an ironman can have many salt wives, he is allowed to have only one rock wife. This true bride is expected to be a freeborn woman of the Iron Islands,[1] and she is by her husband's side in board and bed. Although both kinds of marriages are performed by a priest of the Drowned God, the ceremony of a rock wife is more solemn than that of a salt wife. A man may remarry if his rock wife passes away.[2]
The children by a rock wife and by a salt wife are all considered legitimate, though the trueborn sons of a rock wife come before salt sons in the order of succession.[2][1] A rock wife can serve as a regent when needed.[3]
History
Dalton Greyjoy, Lord of the Iron Islands, never took a rock wife, and a struggle for power in the Iron Islands broke out after his death.[3]
While his first two marriages were to women from the Iron Islands, Lord Quellon Greyjoy took as his third wife a Piper from the green lands.[4]
Quotes
Once I might have carried you home as a prize, and kept you to wife whether you willed it or no. The ironmen of old did such things. A man had his rock wife, his true bride, ironborn like himself, but he had his salt wives too, women captured on raids.[1]
His name, he said, was Adrack Humble, and he had a rock wife and three salt wives back on Great Wyk.[5]
—thoughts of Theon Greyjoy
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 A Clash of Kings, Chapter 11, Theon I.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 The World of Ice & Fire, The Iron Islands.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Fire & Blood, Under the Regents - The Voyage of Alyn Oakenfist.
- ↑ A Feast for Crows, Prologue.
- ↑ A Dance with Dragons, Chapter 20, Reek II.