Wait one darn diggity second what’s this about unmarried half-foot women being embarrassing for the family, what’s this about being unmarried as a half-foot being "different [worse than] for other races". Maybe Flertom and Puckpatti’s intensity about finding a husband is the norm, maybe Meijack, despite Chilchuck approving of her disinterest in romance, is the one who’s considered weird by social standards.

Maybe they’re less well-adjusted than I thought. Don’t misunderstand me I’m aroace, but if there’s a lot of societal pressure and it’s considered a failure if you’re not married, it is notable when all 3 of your kids haven’t married past the time that’s expected. For reference adulthood for a half-foot is reached at 14, Chil got married at 13, Puckpatti is 14 while Flertom and Meijack are 16. The other half-foot character we have is Mickbell who is also unmarried, unsurprising considering his situation. I don’t think them not having married is about their family being poorer, if anything I’d think Chil’s family is on the comfier end of half-foot families with the high wages he gets paid with and the nice living conditions we’ve seen (although we don’t know when he started being paid well). We know about Flertom having high standards, but she and Puckpatti are actively looking to date, so there’s something going on here whatever it is.

It is nice that it doesn’t seem like Chilchuck cares at all, he even seems to generally dislike the idea of his daughters dating. I imagine that their mother must have also not pressured them into marrying at all, maybe even encouraged them not to marry if they didn’t have someone, which is sweet. And understandable, considering she might not want her daughters to rush into it and live with…….. Being stuck in an unhappy marriage. And here comes in what I meant when I said well-adjusted, daddy issues. We aren’t shown a lot of Chil’s married life, but I would bet my life on there having been tensions and warning signs. Especially since, since the daughters and Chil hadn’t seen each other since the separation before post-canon, there’s an air of not having been very surprised or panicked about the whole thing: the separation wasn’t unexpected. Having to watch your parents fall out of love and growing up seeing them in a taxing marriage can be hard, and not exactly put you in the mood to try and find romance and marry. Fear of abandonment, fear of intimacy, stunted emotional intelligence, fear of commitment… Oh girlies I am about to extrapolate so much from this

Half-foot society has a lot of coding I don’t have enough specialized knowledge to pin down, but they’re a poor working class people, anglo peasant vibes. They have tightly knit communities, but then the double edge is that if your community has expectations and rules to belong the pressure will be harsh and it can end up being more isolating if you deviate from it. Marriage historically and in Dunmeshi has a lot of economical aspects, in Laios’ Adventurer’s Bible profile for example dowries are hinted at.

So the pressure to marry might very well originate from the need to bring money in to your family, and to unite families as allies. And from there it grows into an expectation, and thus if they aren’t marred it’s "an unmarried woman was deemed unfit by suitors, something with her must be off"/"This woman was unable to provide for her family, she must be a burden on them" which results into the family having a bad reputation. If Flertom says it’s worse for half-foots than other races, the reasons must be either social or economical or both. There’s of course their lifespan being shorter too, so that might play into it, expectations to go about things quickly and to have a fast life cycle and making sure to have kids. As we see with Laios having kids is a pressure that does exist globally as well. Elves are another interesting example of how familial expectations are like in Dunmeshi and heirdom and whatnot, but free me I just wanted to bring up the possibility of Childaughters being societal misfits and having relational issues.