Marriage and Family in the Three Pony Tribes
Author's Note
This story is a work of fiction and doesn’t represent my views on sex, love, or marriage. It is simply a little project that explores what characters in hypothetical fictional societies would think of these things.
Marriage and Family in the Three Pony Tribes
This treatise by the pre-Equestrian knowledge keeper Spring Showers is a wonderful primary source detailing what marriage and family looked like in that era. My dear friend Moondancer recommended it to me, telling me that she had enjoyed it immensely, and like Moondancer, I enjoyed it greatly too. I hope this assists any future scholar who would like to study the subject of pre-Equestrian sociology further, or for anyone who would like to simply gain a fresh perspective on romantic love, marriage, and family.
My name is Spring Showers and in June, I will be wedded to my fiancé Winter Storms. I am a bookish mare who works as the knowledge keeper of the four lower valley villages, while my soon to be husband is a farmer, who owns many acres of wheat, corn, and barley. My work is essential in providing the folks with knowledge when needed, while the work of my fiancé provides the town with nourishment. Both of our occupations are necessary for our kind to survive, similar to how both our personalities are needed for our relationship to survive. When the time comes for us to have our own colts and fillies, both of our strengths and experiences will be needed for our offspring to survive.
So many young ponies in our village have become infatuated with the idea of courting and wedding a prince, or a princess, depending on which gender they prefer. However, Winter and I know that love isn’t about chasing who society puts on a pedestal. It’s not about pursuing the one who poets write ballads and sonnets to. It’s about finding the pony who is right for you – the pony who makes you feel like king or queen of the world with their love, support, and devotion.
Although the night and day are polar opposites, neither can exist without one another. In the same way, neither my love nor I can exist without the other. I am a friendly extrovert who loves to talk; he is a shy introvert who likes to listen. I have knowledge about what the ancient ponies liked to eat and drink; he provides food for the modern day ponies to eat and drink. Both of our traits, strengths, and knowledge are of utmost importance and must be passed down to both our children specifically and the children of our villages in general.
We are in love because both of us value hard work, and know the importance of raising little colts and fillies. We know that family comes first, and romance second. The love we have is a very typical example of earth pony love, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.
Earth pony love is superior to that of the unicorns because in unicorn society, hedonism reigns supreme. Magic makes their lives easy, so they spend much of the time that ponies without magic spend working pursuing pleasure. In the context of romantic relationships, this means chasing every pony who they feel romantically or sexually attracted to and dropping a partner as soon as they get bored of them. They believe that because ponies only live once, they should devote their lives to pleasure.
For us earth ponies on the other hand, sex is very much a part of our lives but we focus more on finding a lifelong partner that is right for us. When the excitement of having a new partner dies down, we still remain loyal to them because we value companionship over pleasure. Our philosophy is that because we only live once, we must find a connection worth dying for. We live and die for friendship and love while the unicorns live and die for pleasure and enjoyment.
Unicorn households are completely dysfunctional because of their high levels of instability that do not suit children at all. Foals need a stable environment to thrive after all. Furthermore, they are completely incapable of teaching their children loyalty or other morals, since the children are born of immorality, surrounded by it, and raised to live an immoral life.
Earth pony marriages are the best for the children because we focus on our responsibility of raising children, rather than enjoying as many earthly delights as possible. We provide our children with a stable and nurturing environment full of love. Our marriages are capable of teaching our little colts and fillies loyalty and the value of a true friendship. When the parents have stable and loving relationships, the children will also have stable and loving relationships when they grow up.
Pegasus love, if you can even call it love, is another thing entirely from earth pony and unicorn love, and is superficial to the core. The top athlete males pair up with the top athlete females. The top scholar males pair up with the top scholar females. In this way, the traits of both parents are combined to produce children who are even faster and stronger than their parents, if it is an athlete-athelete pairing for example, or even smart and well-spoken than the previous generation, if it is a scholar-scholar pairing.
This is not true love. This is eugenics through and through, and it leads to cold sterile marriages where each spouse is only focused on raising the most gifted offspring possible. The families of the pegasi do not work either in that they do not teach their children to form meaningful lifelong relationships based on companionship and affection.
Because our marriages are based off of years of companionship and love, we are capable of teaching our foals to form meaningful relationships. Also, we focus on making our children as happy as possible, rather than making them as successful as possible at the expense of their mental and physical health. In that way, our way of living and loving is superior to that of the pegasi, just like how it is better than that of the unicorns.
In the end, I believe that because the earth pony way of living, loving and raising children is superior, our tribe will flourish long after the other tribes have died off from the face of the earth. The unicorn and pegasi way of raising a family, if you can even call unicorn households families, breed discontent and maladjusted offspring, which leads to civil discord, and eventually, societal collapse. Our way of raising a family helps our children become strong, loving, and kind, which leads to societal harmony and a healthy society in the long run. One day, the pegasi and the unicorn will disappear off the face of the earth and we will be for the better when that happens.
