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Among
Lolth-worshipping drow nobles, females can choose and discard mates freely
(sometimes merely leaving them, but usually slaying them). Among drow commoners
and drow of other faiths, marriage is still a transient thing. Marriages
usually last from summer to summer,
or for a decade, always with possibility
for renewal.
In drow merchant
clans, security demands that mates be of the same clan, or that an outsider
be taken into the clan, if a relationship develops. This clan induction
is forever; death usually comes if the outsider decides to leave. In noble
families, the honor of the House demands the family name be given (if only
temporarily) to mates of other families, or of common blood.
Child-rearing
is the responsibility of the whole family (House, or clan), not merely
of the direct parents. A long-lived female drow, choosing to have children
only after an active career, normally gives birth to ten children before
her fertility wanes.
Drow rarely
live past their seventh century, and 94% of them die of natural causes
before age 800. Rare individuals (usually those who are subjected to the
least hardship, such as the matron mothers of powerful Houses) may live
more than a thousand years, becoming withered
and worn. Drow do not show their age
until after their six hundredth year.
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