History Literature / ABrothersPrice

* HeroesWantRedHeads: The "flame-haired" Princesses seem to affect our protagonist like an aphrodisiac--every one of them. [[spoiler:Even when that hair is hidden under dye.]]

** Possibly, Balin Brindle is a victim of this. He is rumored to have sex with his mothers (actually aunts, who fill the social role of mothers), which is seen as damage to his reputation, but no one does anything about it, like investigate whether he is forced to do it.

* ChildrenAreAWaste: {{PlayedWith}} Only one male baby is successfully born for every nine girls; they tend to spontaneously miscarry, abort, or die as small children. Boys, therefore, are [[GenderRarityValue economically valuable]]. A family -- several sisters married to one man -- usually tries to have one male child to swap for a boy who will marry their daughters, and others to sell for a "[[TitleDrop brother's price]]". With those ratios it's rare for a family to have multiple sons, but some like the Brindles [[MassiveNumberedSiblings keep trying]], often becoming rather careless with their newborn daughters. Society views this as tremendously indulgent, and a family constantly producing children is seen as wasting its time and energy.

* TheissTitillationTheory: Jerin somehow manages to convince himself that his nightshirt, which just about reaches his knees and is very thin, is almost as decent as a walking robe. Later on, after [[TheMakeover getting dressed up]] for the Mayfair ball, he is very aware that the tight trousers with a codpiece he is expected to wear are a lot more titillating than naked legs. Even if it doesn't leave much to the imagination.

* UnnamedParent: We only learn the name of Jerin's father - or which of his mothers gave birth to him - because he takes the time to look at his birth certificate. We learn neither about say, Princess Ren.

* ExactEavesdropping: {{Justified}} Cullen Moorland hid behind a curtain to eavesdrop on a conversation between his sister Eldest, and Eldest Whistler. As Eldest Whistler specifically asked for a private conversation, Cullen has some suspicions about what they're going to talk about. [[spoiler: He is correct, Whistler asks Moorland for Cullen's hand in marriage. He is delighted.]]

* InsatiableNewlyweds:{{Justified}}, sex before marriage is frowned upon. When Jerin's sisters get married, they tell their parents-in-law that their husband [[spoiler:Cullen]] looks so well because he's getting so much "exercise", "riding"... while one of the wives has her hands all over his body. He's a ''very'' happy young man, and presumably not only because he's fond of horses.

* LustObject: Jerin Whistler to '''lots'' of women. Justified--he is a very beautiful man where a good standard is a man who has all his own teeth and no deformations. The non-related women who don't lust after him warn him to not go out unveiled in public, as other women might not be so decent.

* NeverMyFault: When confronted by Jerin and Cira at the end of the book, [[spoiler:Kij]] claims that all of her own and her family's misdeeds - which at the latest count include treason, murder and attempted murder (including members of ''her own family''), piracy, kidnapping, and smuggling - are actually the fault of the royal family, because the [[spoiler:Porters]] lost money and property in the War of the False Eldest.

* AltarDiplomacy: [[spoiler: The Porters]] try this in two stages. Legally, they're sisters-in-law to the princesses, [[spoiler: whose late husband was brother to the villains and married the princesses to gain that connection for his family.]] Under their country's inheritance laws, if all the princesses were to die, without any having had a child to inherit the crown, the villains have a claim to the thrones as heirs to their sisters-in-law. When the princesses find a new husband, the villains decide to kidnap and forcibly marry him, since his royal blood would strengthen his wives' claim to the thrones.

* BabiesMakeEverythingBetter: {{Justified}} as men are rare and adoption is a cultural and religious taboo, so the biggest problem most women, and therefore families, face is childlessness. While death in childbirth is mentioned, it is clear that unwanted pregnancies are unheard of (women who just want to have sex have no taboo against choosing other women), and many of the problems that new parents face in the Western world are just not present.

* GodBeforeDogma: Princess Ren is religious, and argues in favor of the traditional system of polygyny but points out that "nowhere in the holy book does it say we should treat boys like property". The protagonists are also critical of the religious taboo on adoption, and it is unclear whether that taboo has any basis in scripture, or whether it is just a tradition.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: When Cullen is telling Jerin about his PracticeKiss with [[KissingCousins Lylia]], he says it was like kissing his own sister, then adds, "I'm sure kissing ''your'' sister wouldn't be the same". [[spoiler:By the end of the book, Cullen is married to some of Jerin's sisters, at least one of whom is pregnant.]]

* SettleForSibling: * Due to male GenderRarityValue, the sisters of a family marry one man[[note]]usually all of them, though families that can afford to do so may split the sisters in half and get two husbands[[/note]], so a man cannot settle for sibling, he gets all of them or none. However, the trope comes up twice in the story.

* TakeAThirdOption: Comes into play at the end of the book. The method for preventing a CycleOfRevenge triggered by [[YouKilledMyFather executing traitor parents while leaving their children alive]] is to... execute the children too. Ren finds this monstrous and distressing, but she does have to admit that [[spoiler:no one will take in little Eldie Porter, and if ''she'' does, the child will surely resent Ren's little sisters and future children and probably try to take revenge on them. And a five-year-old will not fare well if turned out on the streets. Fortunately, the Whistlers are nearby and listening; their great-grandmothers were executed for treason but, because the family was so mixed and not cohesive, not all of their grandmothers were killed, and the family went on to serve the crowns without resentment. They agree to take Eldie in and raise her as their own, citing that one more girl amongst twenty-eight is unlikely to stand out.]]

** Boys are more likely to get the full attention of a parent as opposed to the girls.

* HarmlessLadyDisguise: Women are not the "harmless" sex in this world, but in a sense it still applies. Whores are women who prostitute themselves to other women and often try to look like men. At one point Jerin goes out [[RecursiveCrossdressing disguised as one of them]] and is amazed at how little attention is paid to him.

* MistakenForProstitute: Invoked and Jerin manages to be mistaken for a whore ( for a short period of time, but the disguise, consisting of makeup and a feather boa, doesn't fool the villains.

&&* WoundedHeroWeakerHelper: After Princess Odelia is hit over the head by bandits and left to die in a creek. She is found by a child, Heria, and is carried to safety by Heria's older brother Jerin, who, while not exactly ''weak'' is arguably somewhat less badass than Odelia and her sisters. She does not get to have a RescueRomance due to being unconscious most of the time. Her sister Ren, however, takes advantage of the situation.

* YouNeedToGetLaid: PlayedWith Captain Tern comments that Miss Skinner should have gone to the [[SexSlave cribs]] long ago, as she is viewed as desperate for a husband. However, this is due to MyBiologicalClockIsTicking - for some reason the people haven't figured out how to get pregnant without intercourse. Other women are said to "act like a cat in heat", implying that they ''want'' to get laid, but that's not considered a good thing; not for young women who still have a chance to marry a husband (who, unlike a crib captive, would be free of [=STD=]s and therefore preferable).

Then his young sister, out of 27 such siblings, drives off a group of attackers targeting a lone rider. His family has kept up the soldier skills that made them landed gentry. They retrieve the woman only to find themselves caught up in a plot that involves their family history, treason and the fate of the entire nation - which could all hinge on his brother's price.

* HasTwoMommies: Or six or twelve, any child of a family unit treats the previous generation as their mother, some might be more involved with rearing their children others might not. However in families that have one, men get the brunt of childcare duties; but as they are rather fragile, if a husband dies without leaving an old enough son it's left to the mothers to raise the children.

--->"Their [[HasTwoMommies mothers]] and father had been killed. Do you think you could take that hatred to suckle at your breast?"\\

* FourthDateMarriage: What everyone hopes for in when negotiating a marriage. This can go wrong in any number of ways, such as if you're one of the younger sisters like Trinip was, and can't shake your smitten Eldest sister from her choice after [[HorribleJudgeOfCharacter she missed some obvious character flaws]] in her choice of a husband. That's how you end up in an abusive relationship.

* TheWomanWearingTheQueenlyMask: Ren has a hard time adjusting to being the eldest, and thus the head of her sisters, which is justified because she hadn't been born nor raised to that role.

* DeathBySex: With STDImmunity massively {{Subverted}}, sex with non-virgins is not well thought of. Men are rare enough that those who are not made into husbands are [[SexSlave crib captives]], made to service women for ten crowns a night in the hopes of [[SonOfAWhore impregnating them]]. Various different cribs have different reputations, some thought to be clean, others not; to someone of noble status, visiting even a 'clean' one is social suicide. There are stories about a married woman "getting an itch to try a crib", catching something other than a child there, and spreading it to her husband, who spread it to his other wives and any children they conceived, to the point where the entire family was killed.

* DeathBySex: With STDImmunity massively {{Subverted}}, sex with non-virgins is not well thought of. Men are rare enough that those who are not made into husbands are [[SexSlave crib captives]], made to service women for ten crowns a night in the hopes of [[SonOfAWhore impregnating them]]. Various different cribs have different reputations, some thought to be clean, others not; to someone of noble status, visiting even a 'clean' one is social suicide. There are stories about a married woman "getting an itch to try a crib", catching something other than a child there, and spreading it to her husband, who spread it to his other wives and any children they conceived, to the point where the entire family was killed.

Jerin Whistler is a simple subject of Queensland where more than ninety percent of the population is female. Understandably in such a society men are a rare and valuable commodity to be bought, bargained and bartered for by families that want him to marry all the women[[note]]--to be more precise, all sisters--[[/note]] in that family.

* DismissedGender: A lot of the things men of this world are subjected to have been, and still ''are'', applied to women in our world -- and they're horrifying to think about. But there are various hints, some of them big, that these things haven't been {{Gender Flip}}ped merely to make them more acceptable to the readers.
-->'''Eldest''': We don't blame you, honey.\\
'''Jerin''': [[QuestionableConsent I could have fought.]]\\
'''Eldest''': She's a princess. All her life people have obeyed her commands. You're a boy. All your life you have listened to others. It was up to her to stop at any no you gave, even if it was whispered.
** At one point Ren and Jerin have a purely philosophical conversation about how their society would be different if it were {{Gender Flip}}ped, and Jerin concludes that no matter what the male:female ratio is, a woman's consent is more important than a man's, because pregnancy will always make the consequences of sex riskier for women than for men. Amusingly Ren at first assumes that babies are the only "reward" of marriage. Regular sex doesn't figure.
** Ren also tells Jerin that even in that situation, a man has the right to say no.
%%* DismissedGender: Set in the rough equivalent of the 1800s with gender values and stereotypes largely the opposite of Western standards around that time. The story has aspects such as men literally being the property of their female relatives until they're fifteen, then their wives once they're married; men who are raped often being made into {{Sex Slave}}s thanks to being DefiledForever; men being subject to FemaleGaze and [[EatingTheEyeCandy being pawed at]] and even [[AMatchMadeInStockholm abducted]] and raped for going out without protection; much of the value of men being tied up in virginity until marriage and [[MandatoryFatherhood fathering and nurturing children]] after that; the rape of men by women being seen as [[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil horrible]] but the rape of women by men not even ''called'' rape; and social conditioning making it difficult for men to say no to a woman. It should be noted, though, that the two viewpoint characters are products of their culture, feeling uncomfortable about some of these aspects but not seeing alternatives, and in the writing, it is clear that they are not issues just {{Gender Flip}}ped to make them acceptable to the audience.

* NoPronunciationGuide: Ordinary English is bad enough if you're not a native speaker, but with names like Kij, it really becomes difficult. And is Rensellaer pronounced with an umlaut for the ae, or is it pronounced Rennsell-a-er? And one really hopes that poor Cullen is not pronounced like the vampire family of the same name. There's also the question whether Tullen rhymes with Cullen, or not. It should, but if it's English, that's not a given.

%%!!The setting provides examples of:
%%[[folder:Setting tropes]]
%% * GenderFlip: The book. Many of the tropes here only show up because they are so counterintuitive to what is expected in society.
%%* MenActWomenAre * Averted in ''Literature/ABrothersPrice'', as men have GenderRarityValue and if women didn't do things, not much would get done.
%%* MenAreStrongWomenArePretty: Inverted. The novel features a broad StereotypeFlip of most gender roles, set in an analogue of the nineteenth century. Therefore, the noted attributes of women are strength, confidence, intelligence, competence etc, with ugliness being a detriment but fairly minor, but although men are expected to be able to run a household and raise children, ''their'' beauty is extremely important.
%%*MenAreTheExpendableGender [[InvertedTrope Reversed]] in the world of ''Literature/ABrothersPrice'', simply due to the [[GenderRarityValue sheer paucity of men]]. Someone who kills a man is therefore [[MoralEventHorizon instantly]] seen as a monster; meanwhile, the deaths of criminal women and female marines alike are only remarked on in passing. There is a single case of a family where only the fifteen-year-old brother survived, and ''that'' was because spies for the enemy [[AMatchMadeInStockholm abducted him]] before the enemy killed every single other family member. This is in the backstory, and the narrative is not clear on whether the enemy would have killed the brother, or instead considered him neutral and [[AMatchMadeInStockholm arranged a suitable marriage for him.]]
%%* MenAreUncultured: Inverted in one case where Jerin's grandfather was the one who taught the whole family table manners and such stuff. The Grandmas were uncultured soldiers before they [[AbductionIsLove acquired]] [[ExoticExtendedMarriage their]] husband, and became [[HenpeckedHusband rooster-pecked wives]], who would do anything to make him happy.
%%** Justified in all the other cases as men can't get into any trades whatsoever, and none of the media is really aimed at them.
%%*MenCantKeepHouse: Subverted in ''Literature/ABrothersPrice'': the bad state of the rooms where Keifer Porter lived is considered proof of his laziness. The protagonist, on the other hand [[spoiler: almost immediately makes plans for redecoration when he moves into the rooms. His wives approve.]] Not surprising, as this is a world where masculine men ''can'' keep house.
%%* MenDontCry: Right in the first chapter, Jerin gently chides a little sister who's bawling over a cut knee with "Hush, hush, big girls don't cry." This is a world of relatively stoic women and much more tender men who do cry. Being so rare and thus protected, men like Jerin are allowed to cry. Aside from the aforementioned little sisters, no women sheds tears in this book, not even his wife after he's kidnapped or when she thinks he's dead. She plans to sink to the ground and grieve [[CrusadingWidow only after he has been avenged]].

%% TopWife: This would be the Eldest in a given family but as with many gender norms, only to an extent, given the Sororal Polygyny. A husband, as a biological male, has little to no political power, only being able to play 'favorites' to manipulate their wives. This had disastrous consequences in the backstory and Jerin makes sure to follow his father's advice and be scrupulous about sharing his time and attention evenly among his wives, never playing favorites in any way.


%%[[/folder]]
!!The novel provides examples of:

* ThickerThanWater: The expected societal norm. (Which didn't stop the royal family from executing their own in the eponymous Cousin war, but royalty is always a special case) Corelle Whistler constantly tells her brother Jerin that his clothes are not nice enough, his accent is too posh, and his hands are too rough, but if he's under attack from outsiders, she'll come to his rescue instantly. His eldest sister tells him at one point that he's a Whistler, and need not be worried about anything, because his family will always be there for him.

''A Brother's Price'' is an LowFantasy novel by Creator/WenSpencer.

Jerin Whistler is a simple subject of Queensland where more than ninety percent of the population is female. Understandably in such a society men are a rare and valuable commodity to be bought, bargained and bartered for by families that want him to marry all the women [[note]]--to be more precise, all sisters--[[/note]] in that family.

* HotGuyUglyWife: The breathtakingly handsome Jerin is worried about this trope when it comes to the Brindle sisters, all of whom he thinks "look like horses". Instead, [[spoiler: he marries a women who has scars all over her face and upper body, a sight which disgusted her ex-lover so much that she left her. As sororal polygyny is the norm, not ''all'' of his wives are ugly, but this one is.]]

[[quoteright:271:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/jerin.png]]
[[caption-width-right:271:[-Fanart of Jerin by [[https://www.deviantart.com/hbruton/art/Jerrin-50825593 Hbruton]]. The actual cover of the novel [[CoversAlwaysLie shows Jerin with short-ish hair]].-]]]
%% The artist has agreed to let image be used on TV Tropes on the condition that there be a link to the original on Website/DeviantArt, so please do not remove the link.

An excerpt is found [[http://www.wenspencer.com/a-brothers-price/ here]].

%%* MenDontCry: Right in the first chapter, Jerin gently chides a little sister who's bawling over a cut knee with "Hush, hush, big girls don't cry." This is a world of relatively stoic women and much more tender men who do cry. Being so rare and thus protected, men like Jerin are allowed to cry. Aside from the aforementioned little sisters, no women sheds tears in this book, not even his wife after he's kidnapped or when she thinks he's dead. She plans to sink to the ground and grieve [[CrusadingWidower only after he has been avenged]].