Feuding Families: Difference between revisions

In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,

From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,

 

{{quote|It is rare to find a country where the people are not at daggers drawn with the aristocracy, or the nobles not divided among themselves...The inhabitants of two different localities will usually be on bad terms. Their hostility derives from disputes over water, woodland, or pasture. Each village wishes to expand its borders at the expense of another.|Quoted from an eighteenth century [[Badass Spaniard|Spanish]] [[Four-Star Badass|General]] in ''Military Experience in the Age of Reason'' by Christopher Duffy }}

* A more lighthearted version of this is from many [[Brits With Battleships|British regiments]]. The British military system still maintains traces of the eighteenth century [[Proud Warrior Race|warrior fraternity]] air in an age of heavily bureaucratized warfare. Several regiments are traditional "enemies" and will continue their feuds with [[Practical Joke|practical jokes]] and [[Bar Brawl|bar brawls]].

* Similar ritual feuds have been noted by anthropologists among low-tech cultures. As lethal weapons are sometimes used the proportion of ritual and the proportion of feud is debatable and in any case probably depends on the nature of the dispute.

* The Bavarian town of Herzogenaurach, located about 15 miles northwest of Nuremberg, is today considered one of the greatest laboratories for sociologists thanks to a local family feud that has since expanded to ridiculous proportions. It all started in 1924 when hometown boys Adolf "Adi" Dassler and his brother Rudolf opened an athletic shoe company which is today known as Puma. The Dasslers achieved worldwide fame when Jesse Owens ran in their shoes when he won several gold medals at the 1936 [[Olympic Games]]. But the Dassler boys - the biggest employers in town - hated each others' guts, and their hatred for each other only grew worse during [[World War II]]. In 1948, the brothers announced to their workers that their hatred for each other had reached an irreconcilable point and that Adi was leaving to open a rival company – Adidas - on the other side of town, across the Aurach River. The employees then started choosing sides. After a quarter century, most of the people in town had relocated themselves to the side of the river that corresponded with whichever company they favored. Now the town - which had been united for over 900 years – is like a house shared by two pissed-off divorcees who refuse to move out after everything else has been settled. Except that instead of two people, there are about 24,000 people. Today, each side of the river has its own businesses, athletic teams, schools, etc. And if you wear Pumas on the Adidas side of the river, or vice versa, you probably won't get served at local businesses, you probably will be heckled, and you may be assaulted.

* The clans of Scotland were known for this for a long time, though it died down after the country's acquisition by the United Kingdom, which served to unite many of them to rebel against a perceived common enemy.