Depiction Part 20 Depicting Recent Wealth by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Depiction
Part 20
Depicting Recent Wealth
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Previous parts in the Depiction series are indexed here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/04/index-to-depiction-series-by-jacqueline.html
Social Class is much in the news these days.  Older works such as MY FAIR LADY don't qualify these days as a model for how people from different backgrounds move up or down in the world, because many of the features of "class" that mark humans apart have changed.

In fact, a writer of Alien Romance should examine the entire notion of "up" and "down" as a model for social structure.

One thing that distresses so many governments around the world about the Internet and all the social media is that this world wide conversation loosens the government grip on what the people think -- because the internet changes what people know (or believe to be true.)

Thought control is essential to some kinds of government.

So one objective of those who want or need "control" over others is to freeze individuals in a social stratum, maybe make that stratum large enough that individuals can feel they are rising in the world without leaving their stratum.

Non-humans might function in an entirely different way -- thus leading our Human governments to mis-interpret actions or under-estimate Alien individuals.

But you are writing for a human readership, so you need to depict the alien behaviors in a way that allows your reader to connect with your aliens.  Or alternatively, you may want your readers to feelno connection at all to your Aliens (so you can have a nice war).

Spock was the "Alien" Character that Gene Roddenberry invented to look at humans from the outside and comment on these odd human foibles.  His original idea was to have a female First Officer who was emotionless and a half-Vulcan Science Officer who was ultra-smart.  The network would not allow a female First Officer because women can't order men around - it is not plausible that men would obey (right?). So Gene Roddenberry saved the Spock Character by making him the First Officer.

You, as a writer of Alien Romance, have to learn to think that way -- it is not a compromise, but a matter of artistic integrity.

The trick in luring an audience into a built world is to change only ONE thing and make the rest of that world pretty much like the reader's reality.

In the Potterverse, we have our reality -- and a place away somewhere that Magic is taught.  A few Magic Users are sprinkled among the Muggles - but this is the Muggle's world, your reader's everyday reality.

So, how do you depict Recently Acquired Wealth -- a character who has suddenly moved from an impoverished apartment in subsidized housing to a Quarter Acre 5 bedroom house with a pool in the cool, tree filled suburbs?

What is the one visible thing that character would do, would consider imperative, urgent, top priority, after making such a move?

There is now a scientific answer to that question which reinforces the ideas you get from My Fair Lady.  In the play or movie, the initiative for changing dress, walk, speech, of the woman comes from a man.  It is something he does TO her.

In our modern reality, it is something she does to herself.

Here is an article scientifically studying shoe purchases.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/07/26/what-high-heels-say-about-the-rich-and-the-poor/

-------------quote-----------

“When women move from lower-income area to a higher-income area, they pretty much took on the preferences of women around them,” said Galak. “On the other hand, when they moved from a wealthier area to a less wealthy area, what we found is that women pretty much stuck with their preferences.”

In other words, when a woman moved to a higher-status area, she was more likely to try to adopt the fashion and practices of people there, as the chart below shows. When a woman moved to a lower-status area, she was more likely to retain her old behavior, perhaps as an effort to be unique.

----------end quote--------

Conformity matters to humans (and not just women).  Imagine a world in which government is used as a weapon to prevent individuals from changing their economic stratum.  Anyone who does move (up or down the economic ladder) must change costume and behavior, speech mannerisms, etc., to avoid notice by the thought-police.  In fact, your Character's very thoughts may trap him/her in a way that your Alien character would not recognize or abide.

Here are some of those thoughts that a newly rich person would have to learn:
http://www.businessinsider.com/ways-rich-people-think-differently-2014-5

Now, if you create some very Alien aliens -- truly non-human, maybe more so than Spock, you can SHOW DON'T TELL your reader that these non-humans are potentially good friends by how the non-humans prioritize dress, demeanor, thinking processes, and appearance to "fit in."

This was done exceptionally well on the TV Series ALIEN NATION.

https://www.amazon.com/Alien-Nation-Complete-Gary-Graham/dp/B000BOH8Y6/

The Aliens were easily understood and accepted because they went to the effort to fit in.  Those Aliens who did not, who rebelled, because the focus of various episode plots.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Depiction Part 6 - Depicting Money and Wealth by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Depiction Part 6
Depicting Money and Wealth
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

In Depiction Part 5
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/01/depiction-part-5-depicting-dynastic.html
we started to look at Depicting Dynastic Wealth with an eye toward the Romance form of how to marry a millionaire, billionaire, Prince, King, Duke -- how to marry above your "station."  How to marry into the 1%.

The previous parts of the Depiction Series are:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/09/depiction-part-1-depicting-power-in.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/09/depiction-part-2-conflict-and-resolution.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/09/depiction-part-3-internal-conflict-by.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/12/depiction-part-4-depicting-power-in.html

This type of novel depicting the uber-wealthy from the inside is difficult for a writer to create because most writers aren't wealthy. 

Like musicians, actors, and other performing artists, writers are generally work-a-day schmucks, more like Cinderella than like the Prince.  

Those who hit it lucky often live like suddenly discovered movie stars, or suddenly popular athletes on a winning streak, and adopt a lavish lifestyle that eventually bankrupts them.  Those who work for a living (other than Investment Bankers) usually have no reason or means to learn Wealth Management. 

It is difficult to portray real wealth, from the inside, to portray a Character who was raised to wealth and privilege.  From the outside they all seem stuck up, and that makes them plausible to your reader and easy to portray.  

We ended off Depiction Part 5 with the observation that a shift of point of view produces strange inversions. 

In Historical Times, Kings ran the government and made the decisions.  Today voters run the government and make the decisions, then hire working-stiffs to carry out those decisions, bestowing such titles as Prime Minister or President.  But voters (working stiffs) are King now, and now Kings don't run the government, voters do.  It is a point of view shift.

However, while the people we elect either are wealthy, magically become wealthy while in office, or are from dynastic wealth, the voters in general are not. 

We are hiring people to manage trillions of dollars while we have no clue what the world looks like from the point of view of a Billionaire, or what skills it takes to manage trillions. 

The voters are looking at the wealthy from the outside and seeing aloof or stuck-up people.  Is that true insight or just a perspective? 

If you are interested in writing a Science Fiction Romance with a theme centered on Dynasty, you could find some interesting material studying the family backgrounds of dynasties where transmission worked, and where it failed. 

But before you dive into that research, think about what you know about our world, today. 

What does it take to learn Wealth Management?  What does it take to learn the difference between money and capital?

http://amazon.com/Rich-Dad-Poor-Robert-Kiyosaki-ebook/dp/B004XZR63M/

RICH DAD - POOR DAD is a key work by Robert Kiyosaki that's been around for years, yet still holds a truth that is the core of depicting the ultra-wealthy, or the scion of the uber-wealthy. 

We learn our initial attitudes from our parents, most especially our attitudes toward possessions, toward power over others ("Come here this instant or you're grounded for a week!"), and toward money and wealth, ("No you may not have an advance on your allowance.") from our parents.  After that, in college, peers and teachers toss in some adjustments, and eventually with our own paychecks, we see what works and what doesn't.

Most people never figure out why the behaviors that work are effective -- or why they can't control a budget or a diet. 

Self-control, self-discipline, self-governance can't be transmitted from parent to child with words. 

It's a do-as-I-do situation. 

Parents have to "model" budgeting, saving, investing, and all the fact-gathering and decision-making processes that go into wise behavior in order to transmit these behaviors.

The children of Aristocrats who grew up to manage inherited wealth well (rather than drinking and gambling it away) were trained from pre-verbal years to view privelege as a responsibility. 

The successful ones absorbed by osmosis the assumption that power must never be used for personal gain, particularly not for the "gain" of soothing one's own emotions. 

We are now seeing some new Fantasy Romances, and Science Fiction Romances, that depict the well-raised (well-mothered) scion of a rich, or nobel family who has internalized this attitude.

Here is a must-read novel from RoC by Juliet Marillier titled DREAMER'S POOL.  It contains a magic-using "Wise Woman" (herbal healer), a Prince, an Arranged Marriage fraught with real Romance, and mistaken identity all rolled into a fast reading tale of wealth and privelege properly stewarded.



Why are these novels of historical Aristocracy such successes in today's market where everyone knows Aristocracy was an utter disaster of a governing process, where the bloody French Revolution taught us so much, where women would never let their parents choose their husbands, and where being a Billionaire is prima facie evidence of skullduggery? 

Why do we think Cindarella got a better deal than her step-sisters? 

Why do we dream of being rescued into a life of wine and privelege when in real life we throw rotten tomatoes at the limos of the 1%? 

Perhaps it is because we are convinced that, given wealth enough to wield real Power, we would do it right.  Consider the biographies of winners of the Lottery twenty years later.  Very often, they lose everything within 5 years.  Could that be because they were not raised by wealthy-powerful parents and don't know the difference between money and wealth that we discussed in Depction Part 5? 

The poor -- or merchant/craftsman/artisan middle income folks -- look at Real Wealth from the outside and see it as easy to live that way. 

When such a 1%'ers life is lived by a person who was raised to it by a woman who was raised to raise boys to wield power without bullying, that 1%er's life looks easy -- from the outside. 

In fact, that "looks easy" effect is the definition of "Mastery."  When a master of a craft does it - it looks easy.  It looks as if anyone could do it without schooling or training or practice.

Have you ever watched a master glassblower?  Then tried it yourself? 

Massive wealth is fragile and must be handled delicately -- and it is very dangerous if it shatters.

History, and historical fiction, is littered with tales of the ne'er-do-well playboy, scion of a Titled Family, who fritters away his inherited fortune, goes into monstrous debt, and either finds his Soul Mate or ends badly in a duel.

Great fiction is composed of the juxtaposition of improbables.

SAVE THE CAT! calls that story type the "Fish Out Of Water."  A person who is out of his element, coping with the resultant conflicts.  A Lottery-Winner is a fish out of water if he/she wasn't already a 1%-er raised by 1%-ers. 

A mermaid on land is story material.

A human in space is story material.

An Aristocrat without principles living in the gutter is story material.

A gutter rat with principles living in a Palace is story material. 

A cop who does a great job as a cop is not story material, unless the story is based on the conflict between the Master Cop and Master Criminal -- and that's not a fish-out-of-water story. 

A cop who gets sucked into the vortex of some Bad Cops (maybe drug running or taking mob money to look the other way), is story material, and potential hero or villain.

An Orthodox Jewish Master Detective from Los Angeles who retires to be a small town patrol cop, but busts an international art theft ring and runs afowl of a Federal government plot involving the library collection of the most respected Rabbi of modern times -- THAT is story material.

Faye Kellerman has been writing a post-Romance series (22 books and counting) called the Decker/Lazarus novels.  The 2014 entry is exactly the fish-out-of-water novel I just described.  It's titled Murder 101.



MURDER 101 gets its title from being set in a college town, where the veteran Detective has taken on a protege.

The Dynastic Transmission of his professional skills (which are a power-management skill set, just like being a King or a Billionaire) is evident in the one family-dinner scene set in a restaurant where his kids and children-in-law gather, where an engagement is announced, and the protege who comes from a rich but dysfunctional family sees a functional working-stiff family functioning.

Decker's kids are cops, or work in allied fields using similar skill sets.  They all manage Power well.  The dominant factor in that values transmission success is Rina, Decker's wife, but his daughter by his first marriage is a successful cop, too.  She gets it from Decker, though she was raised by her mother. 

As I noted in my Amazon review of MURDER 101, the portrayal of the young protege is "off" just a bit.  He goes around with Decker, and Decker gets him to look up information online using the boy's iPad.  OK, fine, a small town police department would not issue high end equipment, but the iPad is the boy's own hardware.  The boy keeps asking people they are questioning the logon code for their wi-fi networks -- NOBODY WOULD DO THAT. 

Furthermore, they are in New York, where Verizon has LTE coverage, and no way on earth would a trust-fund-kid like this one ever fail to connect his iPad to Verizon's LTE (or something faster).  It's cheap and much more secure than strange wi-fi networks.  No way would a trust-fund-kid who is RICH fail to upgrade his iPad to wi-fi capable.  That is a FAIL on the author's part in "depicting dynastic wealth" (trust-fund-kids qualify as dynastic wealth portrayals.)

I call the Lazarus/Decker novels post-Romance because the first novel in the series, RITUAL BATH, is the actual romance -- where Decker and Rina Lazarus first meet.  After a while, they get married, have kids, raise kids, have crises, get invaded by the bad-guys who Decker is chasing, defend themselves well, and get through it all to retirement. 

Meanwhile, in other novels, they also deal with Decker's parents (who adopted him) - with a boy they adopt whose father is a mobster handling Power in a different way - and with Rina's very Orthodox family.



In MURDER 101 we see the Power-handling-skill-set being passed on to another kid who is bound for Harvard Law School and inheriting a serious fortune.  We see the step-by-step progress Decker's tutelage makes on this kid who has lost his way -- and we can infer the effect Decker's teaching will have on how the kid manages the extreme power the inheritance will bring.

In Jim Butcher's new Dresden Files novel, SKIN GAME, we see MAGICAL POWER in the hands of a man who lives, financially, hand-to-mouth.

He is a cop, of the magical variety, and regards that as a responsibility for the safety of Chicago, not as power over the peasants of Chicago.  He's had some love affairs -- and is currently getting more and more involved with a mundane cop who now knows all about the covert world of magic under Chicago.

Dresden comes back from exile on an island to find his woman and his protege and some friends have been trying to keep Chicago safe in his absense.  In the process, they have grown braver, gained skills, and amassed much power as well as wisdom in using it.

His style of power-management has rubbed off on them -- or he is friends with them because they share that attitude.

Jack Cambell is writing two series in the same universe.  I like one better than the other, perhaps just because I like the Hero.  Cambell has a whopping love story holding his THE LOST STARS series together, two military leaders trying to turn themselves into politicians co-ruling a star system even though their training conditions them to distrust each other.

In the IMPERFECT SWORD, they are separated and fight two different battles, winning despite the tricks played against them.  They win by applying their new theory of governance acquired from their former enemy, BLACK JACK.

Most of these novels, in both series, are nothing but large battles told from the POV of the General in charge, or the ship's captain dealing with enemy ships.

But the story and motivations of the characters is all about Relationship.

Taking a purely Relationship driven story, fraught with political philosophy, to an audience that hates romance and won't read non-fiction, and succeeding so very well at it, makes Jack Campbell a phenomenon to behold.



I've just given you 4 very recent novels, all aimed at very different readerships, all sharing a single attribute -- transmission of power-handling-skills.

Each of these novels depicts dynastic wealth of some sort.

Remember, wealth isn't money.  Money symbolically represents wealth, but wealth is not money. 

Wealth is something else.

Many people say that if you have a loving, functional family, you are wealthy even if living hand-to-mouth.  If you have your children around you, you are wealthy -- even if squatting on a dirt floor nibbling raw moldy potatoes.

Others say the only wealth they can't take away from you is your education.

In the Middle Ages, wealth was the ability to apprentice your boys to a Master Craftsman. 

In the Dresden Files, Dresden had built a magical laboratory, spending countless hours tediously creating magical tools from scratch.  By SKIN GAME, all that wealth had been ripped away from him, and he's left with only one tool he's just built plus his training and talent.

Wealth is fragile, but the responsibilities that go with such wealth are enduring.  Long after the wealth has shattered, the responsibilities will hound you. 

Wealth is the potential energy inherent in your very existence which you have packed into the forms of material objects.  If the wealth shatters, the material objects disappear, or wander into someone else's hands.  The objects themselves are not wealth. 

The energy of your life is your wealth.

So Wealth Management is self-discipline.  Wealth management is your ability to  make friends with yourself and persuade yourself to behave well.

So what is Dynastic Wealth?

Is there such a thing as inherited wealth that you have not earned?

If you assume that the concept "Soul Mate" has a valid corrolary in our everyday reality, then you have to consider that the children of Soul Mates somehow actually 'belong' to that couple.

If Souls are Mated, then the personal potential energy that each brings to the One they are when joined manifests as their wealth.

Children are one concrete manifestation of potential energy actualized. 

Children contain some of the potential energy contained in each parent Soul.

If the wealth generated by two mated Souls is inherited by the Child of those Souls, that inherited wealth is, sum and substance, an integral part of the two Parent Souls and the Child Soul. 

You can earn money, but you can't earn Wealth.  Wealth is the substance of your Soul made manifest -- you don't "earn" it; you "are" it. 

Your Wealth (in this science fictional theory) is part of you, just as your body is.

A strong man (or woman) can exert a considerable Power -- with muscles, or clever engineering -- creating a physical blow that can change things.  Hammering a nail.  Blowing up a dam.

What prevents a strong man (or woman) from hammering everything around them to smitherines?

Self-control governs -- the stronger you are, the stronger your self-control must be. 

Laws can't control you.  Taxes (Kings stealing your wealth) can't control you.  Kings can't control you.  "You" are both body and Soul, welded into a unit. 

Historically, we are still here, but Kings are pretty much gone. 

The Kings that are still here rule a constitutional monarchy.  The despots and strong-men are on their way out. (they keep popping up, but my bet is on democracy).

Dynastic Wealth is wealth accumulated over time, over generations.  The demonstrable fact that a second, maybe a third and fourth, generation has hung onto the inherited wealth, and added to it, shows that the wealth is truly theirs - truly a part of their Soul as their Soul is part of their Parents' Souls.

The Mate chosen to marry into a massive fortune (as the Princess-to-be in DREAMER'S POOL), both acquires that fortune and contributes to it, then produces an heir.

The heir is part of the Two Souls Joined, thus part of that fortune, not separate from it. 

That statement is almost a THEME.  To make it into a theme, you need to take it apart and inject the CONFLICT. 

For example, "Only Legitimate Heirs Can Manage Dynastic Wealth And Pass It On."

That would be a theme.  The conflict is in the question so urgently begged by the thematic statement: "So what constitutes Legitimate?"  And is loss of wealth under your management proof you aren't Legitimate? 

Does the husband have to be the father of the child for the child to be Legitimate? 

Is an adopted child a Legitimate heir?

What if something was wrong with the magical component of the Marriage Ceremony?   Would the children be Legitimate?

What if the Parents aren't of the same species? (Think SPOCK!)

What sorts of Tax Laws on inherited or Dynastic Wealth would species on other planets make?  What if they didn't have Souls, but humans did --- or vice-versa? 

THEME: Dynastic Wealth Accumulation is Toxic to Civilization.

CONFLICT: The Legitimate Heir to a throne flees the clutches of those who would place that heir on the throne (and manipulate them?) because the heir believes Dynastic Wealth is bad for Civilization.  Those who want to enthrone the legitimate heir believe the only way to avoid total war is to enthrone a legitimate heir.

ROMANCE: The current occupant of the throne (who is not legitimate) falls head over heels in love with the True Heir, who wants no part of any of this.

This scenario plays out in our real world in varying degrees all the time, especially in the USA.

Today a King doesn't have to be a Billionaire, or a 1%-er.  Today, the owner of a store, a business or a farm, or even possibly just a house, is a King, or at least a Duke, and the heirs have this same tricky problem of somehow managing to hold it all together, add to it, and pass it on.

Since, historically, some of the largest Fortunes (Rockefeller, Railroad Barons, Shipping Magnates,) from the 1800's industrialization, have been inherited by people who have apparently abused that Power, the USA has soured on the entire concept of Dynastic Wealth.

We are all "self-made" successes (or failures). 

Today's 50-somethings do not expect to inherit a single cent from their parents, and expect they won't be getting social security.  It's a bleak outlook.

Those folks are part of your audience, as are their children. 

In the 1940's, Congress made a series of laws essentially oblitterating the ability of a family to build dynastic wealth.

Tax laws were used to break up budding fortunes before they could become big enough to make politicians dance to the tune of the 1%.  (OK, yeah, it didn't exactly work out that way, but we're writing fiction here.)

Here's from WIKIPEDIA (I said we're writing fiction, so this is a good authority.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estate_tax_in_the_United_States

---------quote--------------

The term "death tax"

The caption for section 303 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, enacted on August 16, 1954, refers to estate taxes, inheritance taxes, legacy taxes and succession taxes imposed because of the death of an individual as "death taxes." That wording remains in the caption of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended.[58] The term "death tax" is also a neologism used by critics to describe the U.S. federal estate tax in a way that conveys a negative connotation.

On July 1, 1862, the U.S. Congress enacted a "duty or tax" with respect to certain "legacies or distributive shares arising from personal property" passing, either by will or intestacy, from deceased persons.[59] The modern U.S. estate tax was enacted on September 8, 1916 under section 201 of the Revenue Act of 1916. Section 201 used the term "estate tax."[60][61] According to Professor Michael Graetz of Columbia Law School and professor emeritus at Yale Law School, opponents of the estate tax began calling it the "death tax" in the 1940s.[62] The term "death tax" more directly refers back to the original use of "death duties" to address the fact that death itself triggers the tax or the transfer of assets on which the tax is assessed.

Many opponents of the estate tax refer to it as the "death tax" in their public discourse partly because a death must occur before any tax on the deceased's assets can be realized and also because the tax rate is determined by the value of the deceased's persons assets rather than the amount each inheritor receives. Neither the number of inheritors nor the size of each inheritor's portion factors into the calculations for rate of the estate tax.

Proponents of the tax say the term "death tax" is imprecise, and that the term has been used since the nineteenth century to refer to all the death duties applied to transfers at death: estate, inheritance, succession and otherwise.[63]

Chye-Ching Huang and Nathaniel Frentz of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities assert that the claim that the estate tax is best characterized as a "death tax" is a myth, and that only the richest 0.14% of estates owe the tax.[64]

Political use of "death tax" as a synonym for "estate tax" was encouraged by Jack Faris of the National Federation of Independent Business[65] during the Speakership of Newt Gingrich.

Well-known Republican pollster Frank Luntz wrote that the term "death tax" "kindled voter resentment in a way that 'inheritance tax' and 'estate tax' do not".[66]

Linguist George Lakoff states that the term "death tax" is a deliberate and carefully calculated neologism used as a propaganda tactic to aid in efforts to repeal estate taxes. The use of "death tax" rather than "estate tax" in the wording of questions in the 2002 National Election Survey increased support for estate tax repeal by only a few percentage points.[67]

--------END QUOTE----------

So now, instead of being run by Aristocrats who have inherited Dynastic Fortunes, the USA is run by self-made million&billionaires.

Many first-term electees who are elected to the Federal House of Representatives or the Senate start out so stretched financially that they camp out in their Federal offices between trips home.  They can't afford an apartment in DC. 

If they are re-elected a few times, eventually they retire with a lot more money than you or I would ever imagine.  Nobody says how this little miracle happens, but one famous Mayor became famous trying to sell Barak Obama's Senate Seat because it was "Gold."  What do they know that we don't know?

Most of these self-made 1%-ers were raised by the Poor Dad described by Richard Kiyosaki in Rich Dad: Poor Dad.

The rags-to-riches stories of these people make great reading, very inspiring.

Many, however, did not rise from rags but from comfortable middle income families where they got a fairly good start.  The Founders of Microsoft and Facebook were college students at the time they quit school because their little fledgling enterprise was taking off into a full time job.

-------

Now pull back and take the long view of our Civlization -- not just the USA, but all of Humanity worldwide.

Take a view with a deep perspective showing Civlization all the way back to 7,000 BCE and the advent of Agriculture.

It seems Civilization has always been run by Dynastic Fortunes. 

If we run into Aliens in Outer Space who function on Dynastic Wealth, we should have no trouble understanding them. 

And we've always had "The Poor" -- usually if you were born poor, you were poor all your life and died really young.  Only recently has that changed, and it has not changed everywhere on Earth. 

We've always had Poverty as a fate.  Now we have poverty as a period in a person's life when they barely have clothes and food (think modern College Students).

It's healthy for the human spirit to learn just how little material wealth we actually need.  Some Eastern Religions (and Christianity, too) advocate shucking material "stuff" and venturing out into the world to live on luck and faith.  It works.  It changes people, and they think they're better off for it later.

But people who have never been "poor" (not knowing where your next meal is coming from) -- people raised in comfort if not luxury, taught by parents who imposed strick discipline because the child would become an heir to dynastic wealth, raised by people who had Kiyosaki's RICH DAD perspective and transmitted it, make decisions using a different process.

If you are so rich you don't know that you are rich, you don't look at the world from the perspective of fear or of poverty (except the mob may storm the palace.)

You don't "spend money" -- you achieve goals with your wealth.

True, the goals you choose may not serve the best interests of the poor.

But I'm talking here about a perspective - the attitude of a Character that would color their relationship with a potential Mate.

Civilization has always been run by Kings -- so much so, that when Israel was just starting to become a Nation, they asked God for a King like other countries had.  The Prophet they asked didn't understand why they needed a King when they had God.  A people where all the individuals behave according to the Commandments doesn't need much government -- people behave well and don't hurt each other or steal, and those who have take care of the poor.  If there's a problem, there are Judges in the Gates.  What do you need a King for?  Well -- everyone else has a King, and they won't talk to us farmers and ranchers; they want to talk to our King.

So Kings were the way of the World long before the Book of Kings.

A King who doesn't gain the throne by force of arms gains it by inheritance.

Thrones are all about Dynastic Wealth.

Dynastic Wealth has always run things -- for thousands of years -- and we're still here, wealthier for it.

In the 1940's, after WWII, in the USA, the Inheritance Tax was systematically rewritten specifically, (as a matter of the theory of governance by what we now call The Progressives) to prevent Dynastic Wealth from accumulating. 

So as I said above, we are now governed by New Money.

In this blog about the 1% I pointed out a quote from ROYAL PAINS on "New Money" and referenced the Estate Tax.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/10/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-7.html

New Money settles things with Lawyers; Old Money settles things over coctails. 

How much of the ineffectual decision-making we see in our current government is due to the decision-making processes inherent in the mind of a person of New Money? 

People raised by a Poor Dad (or no Dad) trying to handle the Power of real Wealth (and wealth that isn't their own) will grab at The Law to cure whatever problem they have.  Old Money knows how to apply dynastic power to finesse away problems and keep stability.  (If you hate the status quo, old money is the enemy!  Wow, Conflict!) 

Now go back to the 1960's and Johnson's WAR ON POVERTY initiative, and check out what progress we've made.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Poverty

http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2014/09/the-war-on-poverty-after-50-years
----------QUOTE------------
Since that time, U.S. taxpayers have spent over $22 trillion on anti-poverty programs (in constant 2012 dollars). Adjusted for inflation, this spending (which does not include Social Security or Medicare) is three times the cost of all military wars in U.S. history since the American Revolution. Despite this mountain of spending, progress against poverty, at least as measured by the government, has been minimal.
------------END QUOTE----------

You want to write a HOT ROMANCE? 

Remember the STAR TREK episode CITY ON THE EDGE OF FOREVER by Harlan Ellison.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708455/combined 

Kirk - adventure Hero Extraordinaire and crazy sexy playboy - meets up with his TRUE SOUL MATE who runs a soup kitchen during the Great Depression.

You can write that Romance, and end it with an HEA.

Worldbuild a place where Dynastic Wealth has been destroyed, and some hotshot yoyo idealist wants to get rid of all restrictions on inheritance and rebuild the Aristocracy of Extreme Wealth.

Opposing is the Soul Mate who sees any wealth in the control of a private citizen as purest Evil. 

This would work easily on an alien planet, maybe a shipwrecked human colony  living with some Natives (think about C. J. Cherryh's FOREIGNER universe).

Play that conflict out until their child comes of age with an opinion of his own -- maybe there are siblings?  Maybe one sibling is a clone of the father? 

THEME: we must rebuild the capacity to accumulate Dynastic Wealth
CONFLICT: The Couple accumulates wealth and is attacked by The Mob that greedily wants to steal or destroy it all (think French Revolution).

To make this work, you have to create a scion of a family that inherits Wealth and uses it well to keep people safe and government stable.  Opposing him/her, you need The Poor -- and you need a scion of a dynastic fortune that isn't a wastrel but is bent on gaining personal power.

Many of these novels have been published, many very well written, but there are still variations -- especially in the Science Fiction or Paranormal Romance hybrid genres -- that have to be treated.

Consider the role Romance novel has played in feminism, presenting the kick-ass heroine in a good light, showing young women what it is to be a hero and a woman at the same time. 

In the Western, we have heroic women who can keep a home together without a man to protect them and the children.  In Romance, we have women who rescue themselves and then turn around and rescue their guy. 

By looking at what it means to be a woman from every possible direction, women readers have come out of trying to dress and behave like men, to being charming and feminine in dress and manner, yet assertive and when warranted even aggressive at work, play, and local politics.

Perhaps it's time for the Romance hybrid genres to tackle the issue of what it means to be a Soul Mate, produce children, and bequeath them a Fortune.

I expect to see novels where children are tasked by their semi-wealthy parents to double their inheritance and pass it on, creating in 300 years or so, Dynastic Wealth in order to eradicate poverty as the "War on Poverty" has failed to do by destroying Dynastic Wealth? 

The four novels I've discussed here, Murder 101, Skin Game, and The Lost Stars: Imperfect Sword, and Dreamer's Pool, as well as the TV Series ROYAL PAINS, all in different genres aimed at different readerships, tiptoe around the edges of this theme of Dynastic Wealth as the prime weapon in the war against poverty. 

THEME: To command extreme wealth without destructive errors, one must be born and raised to the task.

Or:

THEME: Civilization will disintegrate without Dynastic Fortunes.

Consider, if today we decided the inheritance tax has to go -- so that we can rebuild dynastic wealth -- then what experienced people could train the next generation to wield that power in a constructive way?

Depict your King/Billionaire from the inside as understanding and acting upon the distinction between Money and Wealth, between Cash and Capital.  But when depicting such a King/Billionaire from the outside, those same actions will seem Greedy, callous, and irresponsible to the 99% who can not perceive the distinction.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Depiction Part 5 Depicting Dynastic Wealth by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Depiction Part 5
Depicting Dynastic Wealth
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

There is an old saying, "If you want to understand what's really going on, follow the money."

This is true in real life, yes, but because your readers live in that "real" life, it is exceptionally true in fiction.

When you do worldbuilding to create the society, government, laws, geography, political in-fighting, social status, technology, weaponry, economy, and dynamic evolution of culture that led to the situation your main theme and conflict depict, you must include not just MONEY -- but WEALTH. 

Money and Wealth (two different things) are the lifeblood of your world, not just of the economy but of the whole world. 

We discussed "wealth distribution" and the 1% here:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/10/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-7.html

And we've been in hot-pursuit of the secret to the mechanism behind a type of novel we all enjoy -- the HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE (King, Prince Charming, Lord something,), the Tall Dark Stranger who turns out to have power, connections, status, and sweep us away into a new life of prominence and privilege. 

Yet our society today (in the USA) is adamantly averse to the entire concept that there should be such wealthy people (how much did you say that CEO made per year?). 

We hold up the statistics about billionaires as examples of what's wrong with everything.

http://www.forbes.com/billionaires/list/#tab:overall

So how could there be any Romance in marrying a Billionaire (or King, or Prince, Mogul, Mob Kingpin, whatever)?  Why would anyone think that such a marriage would improve life?  You'd just be viciously hated.  Where's the romance?

And where's the Science Fiction in marrying a 1%-er -- since on this blog we deal with the hybrid genres that combine the appeal of Romance with any and every other genre.

We are especially focused on blending Science Fiction and/or Urban Fantasy or Paranormal into Romance.

Once blended, once you "have an idea" for a science fiction romance novel, you have to frame that idea with a "world" that you build to show-don't-tell the idea.  That's where the technical craft skill of "depiction" comes in.

Here are previous posts in the Depiction series and some hybrid topics:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/10/dialogue-part-9-depicting-culture-with.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/09/depiction-part-1-depicting-power-in.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/09/depiction-part-2-conflict-and-resolution.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/09/depiction-part-3-internal-conflict-by.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/12/depiction-part-4-depicting-power-in.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/10/theme-plot-integration-part-14-ruling.html

One of my favorite types of reading is Historical Romances about the Aristocracy. 

I've always been enamored of hoop-skirts, and so one of my favorite movie scenes is the Polka sequence in THE KING AND I "Shall We Dance." 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcWNhCdDkMQ

The classic rags-to-riches character arc is incessantly popular.  Anna in THE KING AND I has inherent "values" that govern her behavior even in the presence of royalty (and she comes from a country with Royalty) and immense wealth (and the power of life-and-death that goes with it in Siam but not England.) 

That immense wealth is (historically) viewed as "unearned" wealth and power that is bestowed by the "accident of birth" or somehow stolen, usurped (think Robin Hood and Maid Marian.)  Historically, such wealth/power was bestowed by the King upon the valiant Knight who saved the Crown (or whatever service). 

Given a Knighthood, a commoner might sally forth and win a Barony, marry well and beget sons who would marry up the hierarchy, and their sons might inherit a wife's inherited lands, and gradually over 6 generations or so, the family would be considered genuine Nobility -- and perhaps beget an heir to the throne.  Dynastic Wealth Personified.  Thus every Mother who raised a son could dream of being the (forgotten, and embarrassing) ancestress of a King.

The theme is: "Nobody could ever possibly earn such Royal wealth/power (1%-er Billionaire) in one lifetime."  If they have such wealth, it means they stole it.  That is a THEME. 

Wealth like that can't belong to any one person because that is "impossible."  Kings don't make their money, they steal it.  Everyone knows that. 

Remember, we're writing Science Fiction Romance.  So we can use any science to form the foundation of the worldbuilding.  We can postulate anything that violates the reader's current understanding of that science, then depict the world and portray the Characters and Conflict to argue the reader into believing the postulate (however impossible it might be.) 

The core essence of Science Fiction is "We do the improbable immediately; the impossible takes a little longer."  Think Scotty on STAR TREK. 

Or think Spock. 

The most scintillating line Spock delivers is "Unknown, Captain." -- when something is currently unknown to a scientist with 6 Ph.D.'s (like Spock) and it is now confronting the character, then we have a science fiction story. 

The plot's main conflict must be resolved to doing the impossible, by exceeding design specifications, by learning something that has never been known by humanity, and applying that knowledge to human advantage. 

Science Fiction is all about doing what you can't do. 

In science fiction, the characters do not ever say, "I'm doing all I can." or "We'll do everything possible."  NEVER!!! 

In science fiction, the characters live in a universe where there are no limits on humanity, and the stories are about the individuals whose conflicts are caused by an impact with an apparent human limit that is simply unacceptable.

The conflict resolution is by transcendence of that apparent limit, proving it was never a limit at all.  This pushes back the borders of human knowledge and capability -- which is what science is all about. 

In Science, there is no such thing as, "Man Was Not Meant To Know."  Today, a lot of research money is being spent on proving the Soul is not real, and everything humans experience can be explained by brain physics and chemistry. 

In Romance, the exact same conflict works: 

Right there stands MY MAN -- recognized at First Sight -- but he is unattainable.  The resolution of that conflict is the wedding, the impossible is attained. 

This, of course, works just as well, if not better, when it's "There is MY WOMAN" but she's unattainable.

That's why Science Fiction and Romance blend so well, and so easily.  Both are always about doing the impossible and changing the course of human history by that deed. 

Science's product is the Cell Phone.  Romance's product is a child.  The cell phone was invented by someone's child.  Science Fiction and Romance are identical, at the core. 

Today, the contemporary romance market consists of women who are the children and grandchildren of a USA culture shaped by many forces.  Most prominent among thos forces is Taxes. 

Politicians call shaping public behavior by Tax incentives or dis-incentives  "social engineering."

"Social Engineering" is the idea that tax incentives can control the "masses" who live limited by the laws made by those who know better, who understand the world better, or who have a better idea of what correct behavior should be.  That's how Aristocrats think.  "Us vs. Them"

To tag a Character as one who thinks of himself as an Aristocrat, use the dialogue phrase, "Out There" -- but not "In Here." 

A character who says, "There is a lot of fraud out there," tags himself as an Aristocrat and a perpetrator of various frauds he/she considers legitimate privileges his Class has but other Classes do not. 

The "out there" phrase is modern American for the assumption of the existence of a Class Structure.  The Constitution was framed with the assumption that there is no such thing as Class.  But it was framed by Aristocrats. 

The USA is founded on the principle that anyone can attain anything.  It's often termed "upward mobility" -- but it really means upward and downward mobility -- and if you think about it, you see that if an "up" or a "down" can be defined at all, then the entire philosophy is founded on a Class Structure.

Some writers term the USA a Meritocracy -- where those of merit gain elevated status.  About 40% of your readers subconsciously look at it that way. 

The individual who refuses to accept barriers to achievement is a great subject for fiction -- especially romance, and these days doubly especially Fantasy or Paranormal Romance. 

Those who refuse to accept limitations or barriers are called Heros.

All Romance that depicts an HEA is Heroic Literature because the HEA is so fundamentally impossible in our modern world.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/01/if-hea-is-implausible-how-come-it.html

Nevertheless, the HEA is real and does happen (frequently). 

Your job as a writer of Romance Novels is to make the Happily Ever After ending seem plausible to your readers, and attainable in real life, even if that requires writing in Historical times of Kings and arranged marriages for Dynastic reasons.

In the historical days of Kings and their horse-mounted tax collectors, taxes were used by Kings to do social engineering, controlling the peasants, and later the Merchant and Craftsman classes. 

Tax Collectors would raid farming villages and steal the seed corn, then come back the next year and punish the people for not having enough for them to steal.

The Kings and the Aristocracy needed the money to support armies (to defend themselves against peasant revolts), and their lavish lifestyles of conspicuous waste.  They needed money (and food) for Armies to conquer neighboring Kingdoms, gain more peasants and better land, and stop neighboring Kings from raiding their peasants. 

It was all very raw, very brutal -- and very much in the current events News of today where the Kings are Drug Kingpins, Cartel bosses, one or another Terrorist cult, or Street Gang.  All those groups are totalitarian.  The law is what the strongest guy says it is, unless he changes his mind.   

And yet, the ultimate rags-to-riches Romance in the Cinderella story is still very popular.  It's a fantasy complete with fairy godmother and ravishing Prince Charming, and kids grow up on it. 

There is an assumption behind that story, that is never questioned.  Adding science fiction to Romance means incorporating such never-asked-questions into the worldbuilding and into the theme. 

So ask yourself, "When Cinderella was identified by the Prince via the glass slipper, was it 'A GOOD THING' for Cinderella?"

If Aristocrats and Kings (and Billionaires) are such horrible, unprincipled, vicious, death-dealing, selfish, bullies, then why would what happened to Cinderella be A GOOD THING for Cinderella? 

Why would anyone want to join with such people, have their children, raise their children to be selfish, horrible bullies in their turn?  What sort of selfish-horrible-bully was Cinderella that she'd be willing to have anything to do with the scion of such a family?

If a person is a bully with their money, won't they bully their wives - and God Forbid, abuse their children?  If Cinderella's Prince is not a selfish-bully when she meets him, inheriting wealth and power (the Crown) would turn him into something worse than Darth Vader -- wouldn't it?  So why wouldn't she run for her life when he finds her? 

Is she that stupid?  If she wises up, what will she do as Queen?  Become a worse bully than her Prince and put him in his place?  Hire an Assassin?  Stage her own death and run for the hills? 

Those are the sort of questions that science fiction themes ask, but Romance themes shy away from because they require direct confrontation with emotional pain, and the pain of uncertainty, in a way that is softened by being in love.

When you combine science fiction and romance, you get an explosive combination that gives that softened world of love some hard edges. 

We know that Cinderella was the step-daughter in an aristocratic House - a minor House that coveted an invitation to the royal Ball (Major Houses don't covet such invitations; they ponder whether to accept or not.) 

Cinderella was "entitled" because she was a relative, but they enslaved her to do the work of a servant. 
(Servants are slaves is a theme). 

Note how THEME, CONFLICT, and DEPICTION dovetail into an artistic composition. 

Here are some posts that are indexes to lists of posts on Theme and how it integrates with other components of a composition.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/07/index-to-theme-character-integration.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/04/index-to-theme-worldbuilding.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/index-to-theme-plot-integration.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/08/how-to-use-theme-in-writing-romance.html

The theme behind the Cinderella type of Rags-to-Riches Historical Romance about the Aristocracy is Tax Collectors Are Thieves.

What has Cinderella, the abused step-child, to do with Taxes? 

If you want to understand what's really happening, follow the money. 

Why was the family mean to Cinderella?  Because they hated her?  Well, why did they hate her?  None of the versions show her as a person of bad character in a family of solidly good characters. 

This was a family which, to Cinderella the child, seemed rich and privileged, but she didn't understand the Situation because she didn't know how to "follow the money." 

The step-mother's objective was to marry her own daughters off to RICH MEN (Billionaires, the 1%).  To do that, she had to appear to be still as rich as her husband would have let her be.  Her only hope for her own existence was to bag a 1%-er for at least one, if not all, her daughters.

To do that, she had to have A SERVANT -- and no "servant" could aspire to marry a 1%-er, or  A Billionaire.  A CEO. 

So the Step-mother made a servant out of her step-daughter, whereupon said step-daughter no longer owed her any loyalty. 

That started a downward spiral in the relationship with Cinderella, and it became not only OK but REQUIRED that she be abused so she wouldn't get uppity.  She had to learn her place (which was difficult because it was in fact not her place, and step-mother and step-sisters knew it.)

Meanwhile, the step-mother is required to PAY TAXES as if she still commanded a fortune.  When the King gets taxes from his aristocracy, he sees those tax-payers as his supporters (think Campaign Donations), and supporters get access (Ball Invitations.)  What Cinderella does not know is that the step-mother has no money left because of the taxes.  This Ball is her last chance, and Prince Charming is her only hope. 

Remember, Tax Collectors also have wives and children.  But who dreams of being a tax collector's wife or husband?

What if your true Soul Mate is a tax collector (or today, an accountant, bookkeeper, or IRS Bureaucrat).  They make a good living, but aren't "rich" by the 1% rule, not on the Forbes Billionaire List.

And tax collectors don't make the tax laws.  In fact, the tax collectors and IRS auditors don't even get to make the IRS "regulations" which are enforced by the IRS as if they were actual Law.  "Bureaucrats" that you, as a tax-payer, never get to talk to, make those Regulations. 

You can go to jail for violating a regulation made by people you did not elect, but who were appointed by your enemies. 

Is your reader's situation fundamentally different from Cinderella's step-mother's situation?  Or Cinderella's for that matter -- underpaid working-stiff.

Is today any different from the days of Aristocrats and Kings? 

Is there something less "romantic" about contemporary Romance novels than Historical or Regency Romance novels?

In a realm of Kings and Aristocrats, the tax collectors siphoned off the "profit" made by "peasants" (usually farmers, but merchants and craftsmen too), and accumulated that wealth in "storehouses."  The King had a treasury, would buy gold, jewels, etc as a means of storing wealth, and as an investment.

When it came time for a war, the King would sell gems and whatever to buy Mercenaries, and conscript, train and arm young men from his peasantry.  Merchants and craftsmen could buy their children out of the army with -- yep, taxes.

In the historical days of Kings and Aristocrats, even at the top, lives were short.  A 40 year old man was elderly.

So marriages were early, especially for girls, and children were the main agenda item for any marriage into wealth.  The production of the Heir was paramount.

Study History all the way back to, say 2,000 BCE, maybe 3,000 BCE.  Look for the beginning of Civilization.

OK, "history" actually begins (according to historians) at the year 1,000 CE when we have some documentation.

But I consider History stretches at least back to the Biblical accounts of Kings and Prophets.

If you read the books of Kings and Prophets, it is clear that cities existed and were taken for granted even then.  Egypt had cities.

Archeology has dug up cities farther back -- Persia, Babylon, etc.

Anthropology dates "civilization" (the transition from hunter-gatherer, tribal nomads) from the discovery of agriculture -- and that's around 9,000 years ago, or more in some places.

The ability to domesticate animals and grow food creates the ability to live in one place, year round. 

And then structures are built, crafts are invented, bridges installed and things are made.

Economics is the study of how transforming human time, effort, energy, and cleverness into THINGS which increase lifespan and lifestyle stability, creates WEALTH.  THINGS are "wealth."  When those things change ownership, you begin to have "money."

Kings coin "money."  A medium of exchange of wealth -- to transfer wealth from one person to another by a symbolic intermediary (coin).  So money becomes a proxy for wealth.  And in some minds, money becomes wealth itself.  Pointing out the fallacy behind such thinking is what writers do, in every genre, by formulating themes that expose the fallacy.

Here are some posts on the ways writers can use Fallacy:

"Fallacies and Endorphins"
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/01/theme-plot-integration-part-4-fallacies.html

"The Fallacy of Safety"
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/01/theme-plot-integration-part-6-fallacy.html

"The Fallacy of Trust"
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/03/theme-plot-integration-part-7-fallacy.html

Kings get their wealth by stealing it (calling that taxes.)  This  can be considered a Misnomer or a Fallacy, depending on the point of view.

Here are some posts on Misnomers -- a powerful dramatic technique:

"The Use Of Media Headlines"
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/02/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-6.html

"The Gigolo and the Lounge Lizard"
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/05/dialogue-part-7-gigolo-and-lounge.html

If they are clever Kings, they steal it a little at a time so as not to kill off the peasants who did the work to make the profit which working-stiffs can't be allowed to keep because then they'd have POWER.

The King's profession is keeping power out of the control of peasants.

To do that, the Kings have to convince most of the peasants (and merchants and craftsmen) that peasants can't manage wealth.  There's something unique and special about a King that bestows the wisdom to manage vast wealth or power to make lives miserable. 

This knack of wealth-management is inherited by the Heir. 

Some use the theory of "Divine Right" -- others admit it's just being the best swordsman or the most ruthless killer.

But in either case, the populace needs the legitimate Heir to inherit and manage that Power.

So look back all the way to the beginning of civilization, living in cities with people who are not related to you by blood or marriage. 

Scientific advancements (such as domesticating animals and agriculture) allowed peasants to make a profit (enough to buy food, clothing, shelter) and pay taxes.  Kings slowly accumulated into enough wealth to wield real POWER.

Follow the money.

Wealth, turned into money, flowed to a central point, came under the control of individuals (who hadn't worked to earn it), and became POWER which was used to control the peasants as if they were slaves or possessions.  Their freedom was only an illusion. 

Over thousands of years, we have records of good kings and bad kings, kings who delivered prosperity, and kings who delivered poverty.

If you haven't reviewed the Book of Kings lately, you should do a quick read-through. 

Yes, it is a book of The Bible, but those are accounts of real people who really lived, and struggled to do their best (edited to show a specific theme, but still facts about what people did).  A lot of those Kings were really bad Kings. 

The heirs of Good Kings turned out to be Bad Kings -- leading their kingdoms into war, or ill-fated alliances.  But their heirs were good Kings, returning to the values and principles that had produced prosperity some generations ago.

The trend, though, was downhill. 

The succession of Kings shows increasing ineptitude, culminating in Exile(s).

Some essential skill at Wealth Management did not transmit across generations.  It would be established, last maybe two or three generations, and fizzle away.  That pattern seems to repeat throughout all human history, all over the world.

Science Fiction looks at accounts of this kind and asks questions such as, "What did they do right when skills did transmit to the next generation?"  "What did they do wrong when skills were lost?" 

The spiritual answer is the simple and obvious one made by the Books of Kings and Prophets -- follow God's Commandments, you do just fine; stray away after the gods of other cultures, you crash-and-burn. 

Romance novelists ask the question, "Why does a next generation ever -- EVER -- absorb the parents' values?  How can it be that skills of wealth-management ever transmit properly to the next generation?" 

And the Romance Novelist will come up with the best answer I've ever encountered.  It works because of the Wife - it works because of the Soul Mate - it works because of the WOMEN!!! 

The right woman is the flywheel stabilizing a man's power-management judgement calls. 

The theory behind the "arranged marriage" (which is another type of romance novel I adore) is that the adults (remember, historically marriage had to happen in early-teens because life-expectancy was short) had a better chance of mating a pair who were in fact Soul Mates than there would be if the children just chose.  Children are still growing into themselves and make choices they out-grow in a few years.  A Mother can foresee what the child will grow to be. 

Remember High School?  How many boys did you date?  How many heart-throbs did you fall for?  How many crushes did you have?  How many boys did you yearn after, hoping they'd notice you and now you're glad they didn't? 

Do you now have confidence that you had enough wisdom to choose a life-partner during those years?  Yet those are the years in which marriages had to be consummated in order for civilization to continue, because life spans were so short.  You had to have your children in your teens in order to live long enough to transmit any values to them by the time they were teens.  (Romeo and Juliet were kids, remember?)

Of course, when we are in our early teens, we have no clue that our choices aren't wise, and no idea what information adults have that we don't.  Adults are really stupid. 

There's another consideration about teen-marriages.  The following 10 years, maybe all the way through age 28, produce enormous changes in an individual's agenda, coping strategies, and operating premises.  The basic personality doesn't change, but the implementation of that basic personality's main attributes does change.  So a marriage appropriate for a 16 year old girl to an 18 year old (or 25 year old) guy has a high probability of going bad within a decade. 

Arranged Marriage is not anti-feminist, but it's not focused on romance. 

When an arranged-marriage couple hits it lucky, they grow together, toward each other, rather than away during the first decade or two, and after that they are comfortable.

Now, here's the question.  What sort of marriage process results in transmission of wealth-management skills on the level a King requires?  What heir apparent upbringing is necessary to produce a future King who won't destroy the Kingdom? 

Or phrase it for a contemporary romance novel: What sort of marriage does the protagonist require to grow to understand he/she is a King, the decision-making boss whose will shapes the behavior of Elected Officials.  Remember, the US Constitution was written in revolt against a King, and put The People in charge instead of a King. 

The People were to interview and hire a President to manage administration, and others to make laws - and those two would hire Judges to make sure laws were consistent.  Today Voters are the Kings, and government workers the peasants.  Or employees are the Kings and Corporations the peasants who work for the employees.  This is all POINT OF VIEW SHIFTING - a skill writers must practice.

In Depiction Part 6, February 3, 2015) we'll look at what it takes to learn and then transmit the difference between money and wealth. 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com