One of the issues with WoT is the way you can understand just about anyone's perspective. When they are not necessarily benevolent (Sea Folk, Children of the Light) to the PoV characters, it can lead to a whole new level of understanding beyond "they're being jerks" or "they're wierd and inexplicable". Of course, for some characters or groups, understanding how and why they do what they do does not necessarily justify their point of view (generic Aes Sedai, the Forsaken, Egwene), but it still helps you figure out how and why they'll react in a certain way. One of those issues I think I've figured out is the Aiel. I wrote something a while back explaining their point of view and how it was formed by their situation & circumstances and how it leads to the future Aviendha views. Initially my intent on composing that post had been to show how they deserved their end by being such jerks and starting a world war over a trivial point of honor that didn't really apply (the requirement that the Seanchan follow ji'e'toh & release the Shaido captives they took at Malden, when the Shaido had long before abandoned ji'e'toh and should not have been protected by it). However, attempting to reason out the motivation behind their actions, so I could show exactly how stupid they were being, actually showed how, from a systemic perspective, they were locked into the course of action that leads to their destruction in Aviendha's future (and incidentally just why they need a savior figure who is a powerful ta'veren : that's what it will take them to pull them off the slippery slope).

Once the breakthrough in how they thought was made, a whole lot of other inexplicable matters become clear. That's what THIS post is about.

The key issue for the Aiel is their self-imposed exile to the Three-Fold Land, an extremely harsh and inimical environment, whose resources are so scarce that they are driven to internal warfare in their competition for the necessities of survival. Also key to the Aiel is their code of honor, ji'e'toh, which can reasonably be presumed to be a product of that environment as well, particularly since none of Rand's Rhuidean PoVs followed it, and Aviendha's PoVs of Aiel who had lived in the wetlands for several generations saw the code changed. The reason why such a code would develop in the Waste has to do with the difficulty of survival. There is so little of what is needed, particularly water and shelter, that those commodities have a quasi-religious connotation to the Aiel. When something becomes so scarce that you kill or die for miniscule quantities and swear oaths by it, the notion of cooperating to obtain it is pretty much a given, but sharing it is very, very tricky.

Trust and Reliability
Trust becomes critical in Aiel society, which is built upon alliances to protect precious water, shelter and other necessities. Those things are so scarce, and so directly tied to survival, that sharing them with someone who is not trustworthy can kill you twice over - by depriving you of something you or someone you CAN trust might need someday, and by letting a dangerous person survive long enough to do you harm. Hence the code of honor, which also includes the notion of duty. To the Aiel, maintaining your reputation and fulfilling your obligations are paramount, and also inextricably intertwined. You get honor by meeting your obligations - by paying back what you are owed and doing what is expected of you. Thus the lack of personal freedoms in some areas among the Aiel. Wise Ones are conscripted (without producing malcontents), and in Amys case, forcibly returned to the custody of their tutors by those she expected to shelter and protect her, because in order to keep your place in society, you need to do what is expected of you for the greater good. You can't survive on your own for long in the Three-Fold Land (at the least, if you found any reasonable supply of water, people with no blood obligations to you would have zero qualms about taking it away from you), so you need Aiel society, which means you HAVE to do what society needs of you. In the case of a channeler, that means submitting to the training and discipline to keep from becoming a danger to those around you, and to put your abilities to the good of society (and probably also removing an Aiel from a position where she might channel as a weapon - a lot of ji'e'toh is focused on limiting the harm done in warfare to keep them from making themselves extinct, and a few women tossing around fireballs to keep raiders out of the hold would escalate to such an outcome in short order).

A critical characteristic of the Aiel, along with ji'e'toh, is reliability. This is absolutely critical in the Waste. If you can't rely on someone to act in a predictable manner or to do what they say they will, you cannot trust that they will be assets, rather than liabilities you should not waste water on.

An example of this comes in tSR, which Egwene notes but cannot completely grasp when the Wise Ones first explain ji’e’toh to her and state with some aversion that wetlanders do not understand that system. It is not quite the horror of people who have no morals, that she interprets, rather it is a kind of dismay and wariness of what must seem like a totally chaotic and unreliable society. Aviendha expresses this same conclusion when she asks Rand if he is taking any wetlanders with him to Caemlyn to kill Rahvin. She hopes he isn't because they can't be trusted. This seems incongruous, with her painting an entire nation as untrustworthy, despite close associations with people who share their culture, but that is how the Aiel see wetlanders, and Cairhienin in particular - they behave in absolutely inexplicable and indefensible ways that would get them killed in the Three-Fold Land, where no one would share water or shade with them.

This too is why Amys, despite retaining total faith in Egwene’s word after her indiscretion is discovered, will not, and indeed cannot remain present when their meetings in T’A’R touch on Egwene’s lesson. She said that if Egwene did not abide by her rules, she would not teach her, so when Egwene broke those rules, she HAD to stick with what she said. It has nothing to do with whether or not circumstances changed to allow her to forgive Egwene or accept her deception. She cannot change what she said she would do, so she must carry on with it, or forever destroy her continuity of speech and action, her reliability.

Rand & Mangin, and Aviendha's right to keep track of him
Rand encounters this expectation of reliability in the same book, LoC, on a couple of occasions. He condemns a man who volunteers the information that he has committed what Rand said was a capital offense, and there is little or no reaction to this event among the Aiel that Rand or Egwene notice. The Aiel do not resent his being put to death over killing a mere wetlander as many wetlanders in their position would, they simply appreciate that he is doing what he has to in order to meet his obligation to Rand. Likewise, Rand has to order his hanging, because he said he would. Rand told them he would hang whoever committed an infraction he listed, and so when Mangin felt it necessary to kill a wetlander in a way that broke Rand's orders, he had to help his friend Rand al'Thor do what he said he would. Doing what you say you will is all important to the Aiel, and to interfere with Rand's ability to do what he said he would, would not be the act of a friend or a loyal follower. This too is why Rhuarc and Berelain leave the sentence for Rand - Rhuarc does not see it as a matter of law and right or wrong, and Berelain doesn't know how to handle this situation in a way the Aiel would find acceptable, or how Rand would want her to handle it. The circumstances of the confession are so strange to her that she is thrown off guard and doesn't know if the normal response (hanging) to his act is called for. Rhuarc sees it as merely a personal matter - Rand said he would hang violators, so it is for Rand to do what he said he would.

This is also why his bodyguard Maidens (Nandera & Jalani, IIRC) agree to such an inexplicable condition as notifying Aviendha of Rand’s whereabouts, because of her promise to watch him. By wetlander logic, the promise was all Aviendha's doing, and if she is incapable of keeping up with him, that is her own fault for making it, and no one else should have to go to any trouble or feel any obligation to help her keep that promise, especially when it concerns an imposition on one of the parties in question. And that train of logic seems appropriate in the context of the individualistic approach of the Aiel, especially when in that same chapter, Rand embarrasses everyone by claiming responsibility for another’s action. If his actions caused Sulin to incur a debt of honor to the gai’shain, it was still her choice to do what she did, and none of his concern, yet Aviendha claims toh against him for his failure to cooperate with a promise she made without his knowledge or consent and plainly against his will. But like other seeming contradictions in Aiel behavior, the one situation has nothing to do with another. Rand's non-cooperation with Aviendha is not at all similar to Sulin’s transgression, which was one of honor and courtesy and proper treatment of spear-sisters, even ones who wear the white at the moment.

In the case of Rand and Aviendha, it has to do with the reliability issue. Aviendha said something would happen, he permitted her to accompany him when she intended to do so in order to watch him, and so it has to go on as she said and he permitted. The Aiel do not see it as an issue of personal privacy, in much the same way it is not a violation for the Wise Ones to observe others’ dreams. In both the cases of Aviendha and the Dreamwalkers, they likely see it as part of their mandates to watch over and protect certain aspects of their charges. As far as Aviendha is concerned, between their own copulation and his actions concerning Elayne and Egwene’s unwitting confirmation of their significance, Rand’s sex life and health and safety, and other such issues as may be significant to his love interest, are no longer exclusively his concern. Though the issue of exactly whose concern those things actually are might still be in doubt, for his part, he has no more right to refuse the attention or interest of one of those responsible parties (whether on Aviendha's own concern or as Elayne’s self-appointed proxy) than a chief has the right to deny his roofmistress entry under her own roof. No doubt the Maidens leap to agree as much to cut off his absurd arguments or protestations and save him the embarrassment of interfering in such a way, as to back up their former spear-sister and uphold her own honor in keeping her promise. The very struggle of Rand to grasp this is one more example of why wetlanders cannot be trusted by Aiel standards, and why coexistence between the two peoples would be so difficult.

Aviendha's toh
As for that relationship between Rand and Elayne and Aviendha, we have the heretofore inexplicable mystery of the toh Aviendha believes she has to Elayne. She has toh to Elayne for her relationship with Rand and she has toh to Rand for saving her from Lanfear. These are fairly understandable, but what confuses is her assertion that she could obviate one toh by suicide and the other by killing Rand, but the existence of each toh prevents her from using that solution to the other. In other words, she cannot meet her toh by killing Rand, because she has toh to him, and she cannot meet her toh by killing herself because there is still a toh for her to meet. Since even the weirdest twist of ji’e’toh cannot possibly explain how she could meet a toh to Rand by killing HIM, plainly her suicide is the acceptable solution for her toh to him. The wherefores of this are easy to extrapolate – by taking her life, she removes the thing that creates her obligation to Rand. Since she forfeits the thing she owes him for, she is no longer a beneficiary of his action, and therefore is no longer under obligation to him. Simple enough in a perverse sort of way. The reason she does not undertake this solution is that she perceives a much greater obligation to Elayne, which would be a disgrace for her to die without meeting it. According to Aviendha, and by process of elimination, one way to meet her obligation to Elayne is to kill Rand. Even taking into account the more casual Aiel attitude toward death and violence it is hard to see how she can meet a toh for partaking of what belongs to another by depriving the other of it altogether. The logic goes something like: Elayne wants Rand, Aviendha interfered, so she’s going to make it up to Elayne by getting rid of Rand. And that seems absurd no matter how you cut it.

The key to this one, I believe, is partially that issue of reliability, and in part due to the economic arrangements of the Aiel. Aiel women are the ones who own fixed property, specifically land and buildings, which have great significance to people in a hostile environment, as “shade.” The wife owns an Aiel married couple’s house and owns the land on which whatever crops they eat are grown. They also practice other trades, including trade itself, and other crafts like weaver or silversmith. With warfare being so endemic to their society, fighting and raiding would be the occupation of a majority of Aiel men, and that is not very lucrative. The plunder a man brings home would seem to be valued as decoration, rather than financial gain, which explains Rhuarc’s wife’s reaction to the gifts offered by her guests – she comes across as a bit unseemly with her rhapsodizing about gold and silver gifts and loot, but that is to our eyes, who are used to thinking of gold and silver in terms of wealth. She is discussing them for their beauty, and she means it(see above re: Aiel meaning exactly what they say). In modern culture talking about the beauty of a valuable possession or gift is a kind of deflection from appearing greedy by appreciating the financial gain too much. Among the Aiel, the beauty of the object is the central point, since gold and silver don’t buy much that Aiel value. In any event, with the major contribution of an Aiel husband to the household finances thus dismissed (their loot only brings in aesthetic décor & trophies, not monetary value), we see that marriage for an Aiel woman is a serious financial commitment, as the responsibility for supporting the household devolves largely upon her. This would also go a long way to explaining why Aiel women are the ones to propose – it is her responsibility to support the family, so she is the one to decide when the time is right to start it – and how a husband might have less input on the addition of a second wife to the household than might be expected. It is the women’s decision to go into what amounts to a household partnership, and they are the ones pooling resources to support the children, etc; all he brings to the table is defending the roof and sperm donation, and since the offspring are considered primarily hers, that contribution is socially minimized as well.

This is a problem for Aviendha, because Elayne has expressed an interest in marrying Rand. Not to him, of course, but then for the Aiel, the groom is the last one to find out. Aviendha’s blindness to such customs among the wetlanders is not helped by her wishful thinking trying to come up with reasons why her fore-warning of their eventual relationship cannot come to pass. With her mind fixed in this direction, she has to accept Elayne as committed to Rand, since Aiel always do what they say they will, and Elayne has expressed (or Egwene has on her behalf) a clear intention to marry him. And now, Aviendha has made Rand used goods. Even worse, he has made suggestions regarding marriage towards her, which might be construed as having undermined his affections for Elayne. Now that she has accepted her feelings for him, she is conflicted again between her honor, which dictates she follow through on her promise to maintain and uphold Elayne’s claim, and what she wants, which includes that relationship for herself. This might seem like petty emotional BS that can be gotten around from our point of view, but in the Aiel perspective of relationships, shaped by the violent necessities of life in the Waste, the feelings of a man can be important, despite what might seem to be their total marginalization in a marriage. With all economic and reproductive aspects of an Aiel nuclear family placed firmly into the distaff sphere of influence, it might seem like the men are purely ancillary figures in their families, but to the Aiel, fighting is all but a day-to-day necessity. The men are important as fighters, in a land where having something consists of the ability to defend it in battle as much as possession. What man will fight for a woman he does not love? Even if this is not Aviendha's direct reasoning vis a vis Rand & Elayne, that is probably the basis behind the Aiel view of relationships. That would be why she is so amenable to the idea of Elayne or Egwene killing Berelain to get her out of the way, or why Bain & Chiad, despite their refusal to intervene on Faile's behalf when Perrin spanks her, later plot violence against him for revenge, or why the Maidens go to such extremes with Isendre regarding her attempts to seduce Rand, despite his own inattention and lack of interest. Due to the life-or-death consequences of a husband's wandering eye, Aiel culture has developed an extremely negative view of attempts to subvert such bonds of affection (and might also explain the humor of the referenced joke about a man ending up married to the wrong woman - the absurdity of such a situation would be of a nonsensical scale). Thus Aviendha killing Rand as a solution makes sense – she sacrifices her own illicit desire and releases Elayne from the obligation Aviendha believes Elayne has incurred toward Rand. She also removes the object of contention between them. This is a reasonable solution among the Aiel, where life can be cheap, and honor and duty are much more serious considerations – however appalling the wetlanders who are the supposed beneficiaries of that solution would find it.