Mrraneti of Cait, part 2

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THE PRIDE: BASIC SOCIAL UNIT

The similarity between the Mrraneti and the lion of Terra extends beyond appearance into their very way of life. Among this species, the basic social unit is the pride, rather than the family, as among humans. Out of this unit arises the whole of their complex societal structure.

A typical pride consists generally of a group of related females, either sisters or cousins, or both. This core, numbering anywhere from three to seven, is responsible for selecting its pride-masters from either the bachelor groups, or through trades (often very complex) with other prides, and for raising the resultant off-spring with them. There are seldom more than three pride-masters in the pride at any given time, and their tenure of residence is usually seven to ten years. During this time, they copulate freely with all the females when the latter come into estrus, normally in the spring. This and the changing of pride-masters tend to allow for the greatest genetic spread of traits, thereby preventing inbreeding. At the same time, the relatively low fertility rate among the females acts as a brake on the population growth curve.

An interesting sidelight of this kind of interrelationship is that the Mrraneti have no equivalent for what humans call romantic love. Six is a very enjoyable pastime during its season, but for the rest of the year it doesn’t enter into the relationship at all. The Mrraneti know affection, loyalty and companionship, but not the specificity of the human pair bond, and certainly not the neurotic addiction that so often passes for love among humans. Each individual finds a wide and varied constellation of relationships open to him, so loneliness is virtually a word without meaning.

As an intelligent, self-aware species, the Mrraneti are relatively young, on the order of six to ten thousand years of recorded tradition. Yet during this time, they have evolved an extremely complex social system based on the pride, which governs their every action. It is complex, yet flexible enough to handle almost anything. To the outworlder, it seems even more complex than that of the Vulcans, yet somehow, it seems to work for them.

The Mrraneti are polite and formal almost to a fault, or so it often seems to the outsider. There is a very good reason for this. It is an outgrowth of their carnivorous nature and territorial background, and serves to channel aggression firmly in the proper directions and maintain interpersonal harmony. The fact that other peoples don’t recognize the need or reason for this apparently excessive formality is placing a serious strain on the Mrraneti exposed to the outworlders. Sooner or later, one of them may be provoked into a regrettable action.