If it's not way too out of theme, how do you imagine the Valyrian culture about women and their social role? (and how about valyrian culture/society as a whole, both during the empire and before that with the Valyrians as shepherds, and about the latter, are you still interested in writing an AU with the Targkids as pre valyrian empire/discovering the dragons?)
Oh god I love this question.
(And yes I definitely still want to write the Targkids as pre-Valyrian shepherds AU. But I already have so many WIPs going on, I would feel irresponsible if I started writing that before I closed out a WIP or two.)
As I've mentioned a few times here and there, I studied Classical Studies when I was in school, so Greco-Roman history and culture are my bread and butter. Valyria is clearly based off of some fusion of the Greeks and Romans, but with more dragons and incest.
(^I am now imagining Atia from HBO's Rome with a dragon, and my god it's a terrifying image. I HIGHLY recommend that TV show, by the way. As the saying goes, HBO's Rome walked so Game of Thrones could run.)
There's a perception in parts of the fandom that Valyrians were egalitarian when it came to gender, but I disagree—at least in terms of inheritance law. Consider that Aegon I was considered the rightful ruler of Dragonstone, even though Visenya was older. If the Valyrians practiced absolute primogeniture, then Visenya would be the ruler of Dragonstone.
Also, even though Valyrians considered polygamy "rare," they DID still practice polygamy—or more specifically, polygyny (one husband, multiple wives). It doesn't sound like polyandry (one wife, multiple husbands) was a thing, or else we would've heard about it; it's too remarkable to the Westerosi mindset for them NOT to mention it, IMO.
Why would a society practice polygyny? It could be a matter of fertility and ensuring heirs—for the husband. There could also be a gender imbalance in society—but polygamy wasn't widespread in Valyria.
This where the whole dragon blood magic theory comes in. If Valyrian dragons are bonded to their riders through blood magic, then each family of dragonriders is going to be careful with the dissemination of their dragonriding genes. Therefore, incest! If you keep it in the family, then you keep the dragons in the family.
But consider a situation like the Conquering trio, one son and two daughters. What do you do with the second daughter? If there isn't another close male relative, like an uncle or a cousin, then marrying the second daughter to the sole son would be the best way to ensure she doesn't spread her family dragonriding genes elsewhere. If a Valyrian woman had equal inheritance rights, then you might think she could bring her husband INTO the family, and her children would remain members of her birth family. But that doesn't seem to be the case.
In an ideal scenario, you would have the same number of sons and daughters, so everybody gets matched up. But life is rarely ideal, so you make do with other solutions—like polygamy.
However, if Visenya and Rhaenys are good examples to judge by, it seems like Valyrian women had more freedoms than Westerosi women. Visenya trained with a sword, and she and Rhaenys ruled in Aegon I's absence. But one wonders whether they would've had so many freedoms if they WEREN'T dragonriders.
Overall, I would say that men still had greater rights than women in Valyria, but your bond to a dragon (and maybe the size/power of your dragon) was also significant to your societal status. Dragonriding families (like the Targaryens) were higher than non-dragonriding families (like the Velaryons), but even among the dragonriding families, there was still a social hierarchy. Targaryens were explicitly said to be a mid-ranking family among the dragonlords, and they only brought five dragons to Westeros. Imagine how many dragons the most powerful dragonlord families of Valyria might've had.
(Fun fact: in Ancient Athens, it was legal for a half-brother and half-sister to marry each other, but ONLY if their shared parent was their father. They couldn't get married if their shared parent was their mother. I know that sounds insane, so here's some photographic evidence from my Athenian law book.)
I imagine that Valyria had similar laws. If a woman wanted to inherit, then she would have to marry her father's closest male relative to ensure the inheritance stays in the male line. But if she was already married to that closest male relative (because incest is so very normal in Valyria), then no divorce necessary! How convenient.
The Ancient Greeks and Romans also practiced concubinage at times, which could be interesting to bring into Valyrian culture. For the most part, the Greeks and Romans only recognized one lawful wife in a marriage so that inheritance was clear. But they allowed men to have concubines. In other cultures like Imperial China, the children of concubines were considered legitimate, but they were of inferior status to children of the one lawful wife. So that presents a juicy hypothetical:
What if Valyrian society only recognizes one lawful wife? Does that mean Visenya would've been considered Aegon I's only lawful wife, while Rhaenys was a concubine? Or maybe they don't explicitly use the word "concubine," but they do recognize the concept of a first wife, second wife, etc. So if Visenya is the first wife and Rhaenys is the second wife, would Visenya's children (Maegor) actually take precedence over Rhaenys's children (Aenys), even if Aenys is older than Maegor? Food for thought.
One last topic before I end this post: divorce! Ancient Romans made it really easy to get divorces. There's a fun story about Cato the Younger divorcing his wife Marcia, whom he loved, so he could marry Marcia to his friend in order to cement an alliance. I haven't thought too much about Valyrian divorce laws, but I can't imagine that divorce happened in practice very often. Imagine two siblings having to tell their parents they're getting a divorce, and their parents have to pick sides. 🤡
Also, if a Roman woman divorced her husband, her children "belonged" to her husband's family. She couldn't keep custody of her children. But in Valyria, if you're married to your brother, then even if you divorce him, you can still see your kids because they're also your niblings! 🥴
