Bondship is a legal contract that recognizes multiple citizens as one and holds them responsible for combined residences and credit holdings. Under current law, all bondships must include at least two members with equal credit status.
Sexual exclusivity of the group is an ethical requirement. Bondships contain four to five members and rarely more than six; monogamy is taboo and recognized legally as Wa’xam.
- Waxamists are rare in Femarctic society and endure social stigma; once classified as mentally ill, modern waxamists face discrimination in specific vocational fields and cannot legally collect donations for rearing.
COMMUNAL RELATIONSHIPS
- Subaki typically initiate bonding, which was once a legal requirement to collect donations.
- Other castes often seek out Zaxiri for bondship due to the unlimited credit line they receive after birthing a donation.
- Bizaki most often initiate bondship since cohabitating with those they care for aids in their emotional health.
- Bonding attracts Hizaki due to the higher-paying positions they get offered once bonded.
- Marixi serving the Citizen’s Guard typically bond as it reflects well on their service record.
- Fleet and PAC marixi avoid bonding, and those that do bond rarely live full-time with their partners, opting to reside in Orta or remain deployed between the poles.
EVOLUTION OF LEGAL BONDSHIP
The rules around modern bondship have changed since its inception, as legal writs of credit division, donational custody, and real-estate ownership have altered the constructs of group involvement.
When bondships began among the Original Subjects, a group brought their relationship to the Serntaxa for officiation, and this continued well into the First Gen, with the breeding castes (Subak or Zaxir) presenting their bonds to the Sernatae until the Guardia Committee’s founding. Under the presiding Serntaxa (a legal judge), Second Gen bondships required two credit-independent partners.
Hizaki of the Fifth Gen sought to control the balance of donational distribution and cited that bondships must contain one Hizak and one Subak. This alteration led to high numbers of non-bonded Subaki among the Sixth—until Fifth-Gen crafted legislation mandated that only bonded Subaki could collect donations. Bondship numbers were lowest among the Sixth Ramaxian Gen, with their Males barred from bonding and their Subaki told they must.
Legal maneuvering by the conservative Fifth Gen also made being a waxamist a financial burden (unless bonded to a zaxir – the only caste upon which monogamy is exceedingly rare).
In the Ninth Gen era, the Subaki minority lobbied for allowing unbonded Subaki the right to collect donations made from their patches if the Zaxir birthing that donation legally gave makermatic rights of that donation to the Subak. Such rules became case-by-case and rarely favored unbonded Subaki.
Decades later, a motion brought before Cloister by Tenth-Gen legislator Yegi Das (Pikalit) and seconded by Ninth-Gen Ryl Jyr (Utama) called for the removal of a requisite Hizak in a bondships donational collection application. A few years later, Tenth-Gen politician Velto Wram motioned to remove the two principal partners of equal credit status requirement (freeing subaki from bondship entirely, yet requiring sole custodial permission from a zaxiri). The motion won the Ruling Gen Platform’s support by a single vote, that of CM Wox Dag.
Wram’s change in bondship rules would be put to the test years later when Donational Services attempted to remove a donation birthed by Wram’s bond-partner, Ilo Cux, from the home of unbonded-Subak, Yulia Utat.
In 2232, legal representatives of celebrity Ilo Cux brought suit against Donational Services in Toxis for harassment of herself and citizen Yulia Utat. Advocates for Cux produced evidence that Donational Services had hounded Cux monthly to remove the donation she signed to Utat’s custody based on myriad nonsensical complaints.
Utat, a Subak, had bonded to Bizak Riba Nox and their Zaxir lover, Rez Polvix, when Cux got implanted. The bondship dissolved with Nox leaving only Utat to raise the donation. Once the Donational Services found that Utat and Polvix were raising the donational alone, they sought to remove the donation on moral grounds, due to Utat and Polvix living ‘highly sexual lifestyles.’ Cux refused, then sought legal recourse to stop Donational Services from harassing her about it further.
In 2236, the year Ilo Cux admitted to being a waxamist, Donational Services attempted to remove six-year-old Pik from the Orta Civilian District home of Utat and Polvix, citing that Cux never had the right to sign over a donation to Utat. As an admitted waxamist, she should not have been allowed to birth donations at all. Utat and Polvix fought the summons and refused to hand the bizakidoe over to Donational Services.
After their arrest, Ninth-Gen Serntaxa Chal Sok, of the Orta Civilian District Guardia Committee, presided over the case. She vacated the warrants issued out of Toxis by Donational Services and quashed the donational-removal order, stating: ‘Donational Services’ failure to vet Ilo Cux as a waxamist does not entitle them to subsequently remove a donation from her maker six years after the fact.’
FEMITOKON 