(02-11-2015, 10:56 AM)Kinono Wrote: As far as I can tell, there's not much info on marriage weddings, but they'd seem common and easy enough. According to one unnamed NPC, same-sex marriage is fine, and then you have the whole Tam-Tara Deepcroft story.

As for actual RPing, it's enough to just say you're married, even though I have that one friend who refuses to acknowledge it and just calls me "bonded" every time I RP with her.

*grumble grumble*

Edit:forgot about that Hildy arc, but again... scant info.

(02-11-2015, 08:50 PM)hauntmedoitagain Wrote: I'm not sure 'great length' is entirely accurate when it seems like there's no real consensus here and there's a definite lack of in-game dialog consistency on the subject.

Think it all boils down to personal interpretation tbh as with most lore things.

(02-11-2015, 08:33 PM)Kinono Wrote: Eternal Bonding isn't marriage and isn't the "official" term for it. They go through great length, both in the game dialogue and through the news related to the feature to state that marriage and Eternal Bonding, while similar, are not synonymous. Both marriage and bonding exist, and they are two separate, yet similar, things.

Bonding can have a lot of different meanings, and two people can do it in Eorzea for a lot of different reasons. It is implied to be more for adventurers than Eorzeans proper. The one constant between all these reasons is that bonding is VERY religiously based in the 12 as we know them. As stated earlier in the thread, a bonding ceremony is more about the celebration of a bond, instead of being a legal agreement besides. Bonding, while still a legal agreement (as evidenced by the oh-so-romantic "look at this paper we signed" ceremony), is not as intense. You do not share property when bonded, and are not seen as a single entity within any governing body. Note that in-game dialogue never uses "bonding" and "marriage" synonymously, though there is a singular interview where Yoshida (I believe) responds to a question about marriage by beginning "Marriage, or eternal bonding..."

Marriage is exactly what it sounds like, and is closer to our real world understanding of it. You share property when married, including as evidenced by "the Business of Betrothal" arc in the Hildibrand quests. Marriages are (seemingly especially in Ul'dah and lalafell culture) arranged and done for purely business and practical reasons. Note that as far as I can tell, no instance of marriage in the game has ever been used synonymously with "bonding." 

Can a character be both at the same time? Hard to say. As of yet, we only see players bonded and NPCs married, and we, as PCs, are kept separate from the "marriage" facet of society.

Yoshida Wrote:We are aiming for a 2.4 release of a system where the people living in Eorzea can pledge their love and/or friendship for each other with another player. And because you are pledging love and friendship we don't want there to be any barriers that prevent people of a certain age or race or gender from being able to pledge their love for one another.

Yoshida Wrote:People within Eorzea will be able to pledge their eternal love and or friendship in a ceremony of eternal bonding. And this will be open to people regardless of race, creed, and gender. Two players...if they want to be together, in Eorzea, they can—through this eternal bonding ceremony.

We discussed it, and we realized: within Eorzea, why should there be restrictions on who pledges their love or friendship to each other? And so we decided to go this way.

(02-12-2015, 12:23 AM)Kage Wrote: In my humble opinion, eternal bond is all intent and purposes marriage in the game. They opened it up because they wanted to be able to allow "same-sex couples" to bond while not making people be super mad that it was marriage.