On Fri, Jul 31, 2015 at 10:52:40PM -0500, Grimmund wrote:
> They may not have to balance their own credit accounts, or manage
> household finances, but I don't see any way they can be completely
> innumerate luddites and still run an empire, unless they are just
> the pawns of their household females.

There's quite a difference between politics and administration,
especially if they have lots of people to take care of the details.
As I read it, the leading males deal almost entirely with the
politics.  Yes, someone who is a very good administrator as well as a
politician may do better -- but not if the very fact of them dealing
with such matters weakens them politically.

I think "innumerate luddites" would be an overstatement, but they
might lack many basic skills such as how to find and book a hotel room
without help, or the rules of operating vehicles in civilized areas.
I'm reminded of a particular person I knew as I write this.  She
wasn't stupid, but she always had someone else to do stuff for her
throughout her life, and I'm pretty sure she would be totally lost for
quite some time if that ever changes.

> I'm a little stumped as to how wealthy females would court high-SOC
> males.

I don't think anything indicates that they're socially isolated, or
that the high-SOC males are unaware of who the wealthy families are.
As I see it, that's their primary responsibility: they are very much
focussed on the "who" and "what" in various clan dealings.  For most
of the major players, they'll know their families, behaviour,
motivations, histories, alliances, and what they have that is of
importance (if not necessarily the details or why or how).

> Again, it seems to imply the males cannot all be dumb as a post.

I never read that as being the case.

> (I'm not sure how the Hani could be self-sustaining either; from
> what I recall, there were very few males around, and I sort of got
> the impression that there weren't going to be enough to breed
> replacements each generation.)

With humans (and most other animals on Earth), very few males are
strictly needed to breed with lots of females.  That doesn't
necessarily hold with alien species.

- Tim