Originated from the Forts where Simes and Gens lived together without Killing, the Householdings became more organised and each one had its own specialty and virtue. All Households dedicated themselves to ending the Kill, and later formed the backbone of the Tecton, the government organization that controlled the distribution of Selyn.
Householding Origins
(From -Householding Board of Governors Office of the Controller
Council Plaza / Tecton Building / Gulf Territory ---- From: A COMPANION IN ZEOR fanzine #6)
http://www.simegen.com/sgfandom/rimonslibrary/cz/cz06/Governors.html
Document No: 137450
Reply To: J. Lichtenberg –– Controller
Respect to Cygnus and other householdings interested in Tecton Membership:
The early Tecton was founded in N'vet Territory where the householdings originated. It was installed as an organization or alliance of householdings for the purpose of presenting a united front to the N'vet government which was, at that time, dominated by juncts.
Eventually, this policy of unification of householdings resulted in the winning of a representative on the N'vet councils and a real voice in the N'vet Territory government. This made Klyd Farris's coup possible –– and the founding of the modern Tecton proceeded from that, together with the uniting of N'vet Territory and Gulf Territory and the Gen lands between under the authority of the Tecton Controllers.
On Colour designations in Households
(From - Householding Board of Governors Office of the Controller
Council Plaza / Tecton Building / Gulf Territory --- From: A COMPANION IN ZEOR fanzine #6)
http://www.simegen.com/sgfandom/rimonslibrary/cz/cz06/Governors.html
...Householding heraldic colors. The early Tecton reserved the color white (pure, dazzling, stark white) to be added to a householding's colors on the crest and garments of the Sectuib. At the same time, they designated stark black to be added to the crest and garments of any Farris (Channel, renSime, or Companion). They forbade any Tecton member householding from choosing either pure white or unrelieved black as one of their designated colors.
There are several reasons for this, most of them obvious. Black became a warning flag that the bearer could not be treated as roughly as others, and also that the bearer could be relied upon in an emergency to perform beyond all reasonable expectations. No sane person, from that day on, ever chose to wear either the Farris Name, or the Farris color, black, unless they were capable of Farris level performance and willing to accept Farris restrictions. None but a Farris is so capable or accepting.
From that date, all those bearing Farris genetic patterns adopted the Farris surname in self-defense. Those who formerly had been named Farris hastily dropped that name in favor of any other.
Later, manufactured products began carrying black bands or other devices on their labels to indicate they were hypoallergenic to (most) Farrises. The modern Tecton uses the black flash across the front of a Farris chart as a medic-alert. Treatment that can save a Farris's life might well be murder on a non-Farris –– and vice-versa. None of the later-formed householdings would ever incorporate any shade of black into their heraldry (unless every member were Farris, and there is not likely to be any such household) because they would not expose their members to such dangers.
Householdings founded outside N'vet Territory or before the early Tecton spread to other Territories may have had black as one of their colors. Usually they changed their colors upon joining the Tecton. In cases where they refused to change, special dispensations may have been issued, but after a few years of tragedies and annoyances caused by people misreading their designations, members would vote to drop the black in favor of something else.
Householdings joining after such a history had been experienced by former black-bearing householdings would heed the warning in those stories. There is no necessity here of going into the gory details.
The result is that by the time of Orim Farris, or about the year 70 of the Tecton calendar (70 Unity), no householding known to the Tecton bore black or white as one of its colors.
(Source: Householding Registry on the domain Simegen.com http://www.simegen.com/sgfandom/householding/virtue.html)
A Definition of Householding "Virtue"
The "virtue" of the Householding is a philosophy or attitude which the members all regard as THE SINGLE FOUNDATIONAL CONCEPT necessary to construct a philosophy that will work in the Sime~Gen world. It has nothing to do with morality. It has nothing to do with goodness. It has nothing to do with merit or meritoriousness. It has to do with SURVIVAL as does everything else in S~G. But MOST IMPORTANT - it has to do with the binding quality that unifies the House because in a hostile world, that HouseBinding is their survival edge. Every member of a Householding is a member not because they believe or adopt this Virtue - but because they live that way whether they know it or not. It isn't an opinion. It isn't a political position. It's an element of CHARACTER so intrinsic the person isn't aware it's there until they RECOGNIZE that quality in the personhood of the Sectuib.
The Sectuib is the personification of that ideal. And it is an IDEAL - not usually fully manifested. It is what is striven for - not what has already been accomplished. Thus the House Virtue is the one thing which, if striven for, would ensure survival of the House, maybe of all humanity because if you get this one thing right, everything else will come out right automatically. The House Virtue is what they perceive as the cause - and all else in the philosophy is just effects. It is the single AXIOM of their existence. It is the one (and only) thing the members of a House don't argue about because to them it's self-evident. The VIRTUE is the solution to the problem "What is it that's killing us?!!!!" It's a "Just get this right and everything else will fall into place naturally," concept. Thus when an outsider looks at all the members of a House, the outsider sees , "They're all the same!" They all have that indefinable, abstract QUALITY that is either irritating, or admirable, or simply distinctive. The insiders look at each other and can't see any similarities among themselves at all. They look at the Sectuib - and they see their Unity of Purpose Made Real. It's that vision that makes diverse people accept each other. It is very personal.
This QUALITY,"Virtue," isn't a matter of personal choice. You're born with it, or you're not. That's why to Householders it is no stigma not to be a member of a particular House. But not to be a Householder is a stigma - it is to be without a solution to the problem, "What's killing us?" That is to be junct or a Wild Gen. Or it is to have a solution and no one else to share it with - to bind with - to be whole and complete with. This latter group are the disjuncts and nonjuncts and donors who are transients - people trying to find their House by living here a while and there a while - contributing to Householdings without having yet found their Sectuib. It is from this population of transients that new Houses form, more than from members of a particular House (though that happens too). As a person grows and ages - sometimes the notion of what Virtue is THE most crucial to foster and strive for will become more refined. So the House you were born and raised in or which you joined on disjunction might eventually begin to seem too broad, too abstract, too unfocused. Thus you get "daughter" Houses formed by groups within a House that start as genuine members of that House and evolve from there into something new. The older Houses generally had the broadest concepts of the Virtue they were striving for - and with time, Houses founded out of that House refined and narrowed the concept. But all the Virtue concepts in a family of Householdings are related.
Of course, it doesn't always exactly work like that. Humans aren't "orderly" in their method of generating history. But when Zeor was founded, it came from a large number of splinter groups coming together searching for their one common denomenator - because they had to. It was the only way to survive. They were a very small number (400 as we've just discovered - not counting the channeling staff) and they were as diverse as any random sampling of 400 humans could ever be. The more diverse the group, the more urgent their need to bind into a House, the more general, the more abstract, their Binding Virtue is likely to be. And an Abstract, however wondrous, will prove inadequat to the next generation of youth who want single-pointed and simple, definitive ANSWERS. Abstraction is for elders. Youth wants quick easy specifics.
Zeor was composed of 400 desperate people of diverse ages - though most of them had been through a harsh winnowing where the infants and children died, and the elderly and infirm died - so what was left were the vigorous individuals of mid-years. They found their common denomenator in Del Rimon Farris - who strove for excellence, and never mind excellence in what. Just excellence. Stop arguing about what's the most important thing to do first, and just do whatever you're doing a little better than you did the last time you tried it. However well or poorly you did this time - at whatever you were doing - next time do a little better. Next time excel your previous mark. If you keep doing that, we'll survive, we'll make it. And if we make it - humanity will make it. Excellence is not perfection. You can't excel past perfection. Perfection is not the goal of excellence. Excellence is not a moral value. It's not meritorious. It's not "good". It's just a philosophy - a way of approaching the doing of deeds that leads to survival in the Sime~Gen universe. It might even be worth a try or two in the Ancient universe - but we're probably not desperate enough. You see the big problem with Excellence as a virtue is that it doesn't make any statement about other people's methods of survival - so you can't develop prejudices around it. It's just too slippery. Most Householding virtues are like that. Take Keon for example - Freedom. Now there's a slippery concept for you! If you get stuckup over how free you are compared to other people - you're NOT FREE!!!