Let’s talk about conventions around Cardassian surnames. I’ve started pondering the question of whether Cardassians take their spouse’s surname (perhaps more specifically, whether women take their husband’s surname). There is nothing in alpha canon that gives us any clues (I looked through Memory Alpha’s ‘Cardassians’ category, and the only case we have of people with the same surname are fathers and their children - Kotan and Rugal Pa’Dar, Tekeny and Iliana Ghemor, etc.) On Memory Alpha there are a few examples of wives whose last names are listed as the same as their husbands (Athra Dukat, Niala Damar), but I don’t know if that actually means that they’re called that in the books, or if the Memory Beta editors are making the assumption that Skrain Dukat’s wife Athra must be Athra Dukat. While I’m not sure what my opinion actually is, I feel that automatically assuming that their system is just like the dominant one in our society is… bit dull?
Cross-culturally, the concept of taking your husband’s surname is not that common. Even in Northern Europe (because in Southern Europe it’s still not widely done), it is quite a new thing. Still in the late 18th century in Europe, women would still be known by the surname they were born with, or would swap between their family surname and their husband’s surname depending on the situation. Among the Etruscans of ancient Italy (where women had three names - praenomen (forename) nomen (family name) and cognomen (personal name, but sometimes associated with family branches) - unlike among the Romans, where women only had a nomen and sometimes cognomen), women kept their own family’s nomen even after getting married. The children would take the father’s nomen. This seems to be a more common model, occurring in much of modern Asia (though interestingly enough not in Japan). I believe that in some cultures (though I’m not sure where), newly-weds will take an entirely new surname, both changing to that name.
All this comes down to how marriage is conceptualised. Do Cardassians see the woman as ‘leaving’ the family she was born into and instead becoming part of the husband’s family? Does she ‘connect’ both families? Or is she half-outside her husband’s family - a conduit of the family but not quite part of it? I don’t think it’s a given that all Cardassians do the same thing - there might be class differences, where the upper classes do one thing and others do another. Maybe there are different types of marriage of different degrees (thinking something like the Roman concepts of marriage cum manu and sine manu, where legal control either passes to the husband or stays with the father (but maybe less ‘women don’t have rights’-y) or maybe like morganatic marriages). Perhaps surnames can sometimes be matrilineal, in some social contexts or some geographical areas.
This was a very rambly way of saying - I’d love to hear people’s thoughts and personal headcanons on Cardassian marriage and Cardassian name conventions.
My personal preference would be that both partners keep their family name and add on a new combined name when they marry.
Other than knowing that Cardassians value family, we know very little about how they view names in general. For instance, instead of a change in family name it is a change in personal name. A possible idea being that Cardassians idea of a first name is just that, the first name you are given, and after marriage that name will change to signify a change in the individual.
That’s a good point - maybe we shouldn’t just focus on the second name? My view of Cardassian first names is very coloured by @alphacygni-8‘s Proof, which says that they’re only really used by close family and romantic partners. (This is not the case in beta canon, and I’ve realised it really rubs me the wrong way when some random person calls Garak ‘Elim’. It feels so intimate.) Maybe a wedded couple take on new names that only they use, and that aren’t known to others.
My take on Cardassian naming conventions (which I’ve described elsewhere, primarily in the fic The Hatchling) is that first names aren’t given until the child is about eight months, when gender is assigned. Before that, the child is called by one of a few gender-neutral names (a family will have different sets, maybe three or so, but of course there’ll be overlap). The father chooses the ‘proper’ first name, while the baby name is picked by the mother. The set of baby names are passed down from mother to daughter, so you’re unlikely to have had the same baby name as your father, but might well have had the same as your mother.
This is a ridiculous galaxy brained take but…Garak/Shakaar
This is both a way better pairing than Shakaar/Kira, and a way more interesting one. I can totally see Garak be the one to pursue Shakaar, but it might be even more interesting if Shakaar basically propositions Garak for no-strings-attached sex, and Garak is like ‘this was unexpected. But sure.’
(ID - a screenshot of Miles O’Brien staring at Julian Bashir smiling as Julian faces to the side, also smiling, with a tumblr post overlaid in the corner edited to say “starfleet officers say the damndest shit in interviews when asked about another officer its like. oh yes my crewmate? he is my everything. my soul and my bone marrow the warmth of my stomach. the apple of my eye the orchard of oranges in the shade of which i want to retire. my arms are limber for him my bed is cold when hes gone i turn to him to celebrate and cry and he wipes my tears like theyre holy on his thumbs like they hurt him more than im hurt spilling them. yes i do have a wife and four kids at home what do you mean” end ID)
I’ve been thinking about what Cardassian homes look like, so here is what I’ve come up with. This is a house intended for one family of several generations. The large room in the middle, which receives light from the skylights, is where people spend most of their time when they’re awake. That’s where most meals are taken, children play and do homework, people socialise and so on and so forth. In this floor-plan, there are five bedrooms, but sharing is common.
For the exterior, I wanted to go with something that was consistent with the Cardassian architecture we see, but on a smaller scale. I intended the area just above the skylight to be solar-panels, but I’m not actually sure Cardassians would use solar energy, so maybe it’s just decorative. The oval thing above the door is a monitor connected to the door-bell, and also serves as a security feed.
I love this! <3 I love seeing people’s takes on alien domestic architecture.
When I was writing the first few chapters of Tell Me You See Me, I had to draw myself a floorplan so that I could better visualize and describe the cottage in Chapter 7. This is what I came up with, which is a bit like yours:
(Actually I kind of like the central family/living area arrangement in yours better, but I was really invested in having a long ominous windowless hallway in mine lol. I also wanted the design to feel a bit small and cramped, since this is meant to be a servants’ dwelling.)
I don’t have any drawing skills to speak of, but at the time I was spending a lot of time playing around with polymer clay, so I decided to model the exterior and stick it in a diorama. My goal was also to try to come up with something that fit with Cardassian architecture on a smaller scale. (The construction elements for the diorama are described in more detail in this post.)
My idea was that the windows and door look indistinguishable from each other from the outside, as a kind of defensive camouflage. (The cottage is supposed to be a bit quaint and old-fashioned by Cardassian standards, hence the rather archaic approach to security.)
Your cottage model is really cute (and I mean that in a good way). There are some interesting similarities between the exteriors of yours and mine.
You hit upon something important with the ominous windowless hallways, I think. Places and story are often intertwined, and the feelings one wants to evoke will influence how things look. When I read that sentence, I realised that this was part of the reason why I went with the design in question. In the fic I’m working on now, the feeling that you can never be alone and that you can’t avoid the people you live with is quite central. When you sit in the family room, you’re exposed - all the doors make it into a domestic panopticon. It also means that withdrawing isn’t really an option - even if you stayed in your room (which would be seen as rude), you’d still have to pass through the room where everyone else is. (When I was a student I lived in a room where you had to pass through the communal kitchen to get to the front door. I spent quite a lot of my time anxiously waiting for people to get out of the kitchen so I could leave. 0/10 Would not recommend.)
Some of this is going to come down to world-building, of course, but even world-building isn’t going to be completely divorced from these considerations. If I were to write a fic about a family in post-canon Cardassia, I might go with another design, partly because architecture might have changed - for instance, there are mentions of the Federation putting up prefab houses - but also, Cardassia after the restoration is a place where new ideas of privacy and respecting other people’s boundaries are appearing (though they might be contested by some). Similarly, if we want to make something alien, we’re usually going to go with something that’s unlike what we ourselves are used to.
I think it’s also important to point out that there are going to be a lot of different types of houses and homes on Cardassia. This is intended as a sort-of-suburban house for a upper-middle class family. Tain’s house looks completely different, in my opinion. For one thing, we know it has a very large cellar. What we see of Tekeny Ghemor’s home is also quite different. It might actually be a large flat rather than a house, but of course it could also be that only the upper floor(s) is used for habitation, like in some 17th century castles, where the ground floor was taken up by storage, kitchens and servants’ quarters (an idea I quite like, now that I put it in words). Rural homes, factory workers’ homes and servants’ homes will also look very different. (When it comes to workers’ homes, I’m thinking high-rise buildings in brutalist architecture.)
Cecil. She/her. Â During the day I sit in libraries staring at books. During the night I write queer fanfiction with a historical slant.
Some not-so-random facts: Gay space lizards are the best lizards. Star Trek is my life. I have too many DS9 ships. Classic Who and the Eighth Doctor Adventures make me grin stupidly. Kelas Parmak is the best. I will defend historically accurate portrayals of Alan Turing to the last drop of blood. Â Likes and asks end up in the name of @apolesens-otheraccount, because Tumblr doesn't have a way of changing which blog is your primary one. Nothing happens over there - this is the one to follow.Â
