As if being married is the end-all, be-all of someone's life? Please. [Aren snorts at that, still not certain it'd ever be what she wants for herself.] Sex is fun and what consenting adults do is their own damn business. Or it should be.

They're in decline because they're having less and less kids, for one. Something about being near darkspawn is bad for fertility, go figure. The darkspawn numbers always seem to go up, whereas Orzammar dwarves' numbers thin out because of soldiers dying against darkspawn in battle, or because politics in the city can be very, very lethal. Orzammar elite are all about the appearance of honor, but really, they're as backstabbing as anyone else. Maybe more.

And it's all bullshit because there's plenty of dwarves on the surface doing just fine, so there's no fucking reason to just wait for the darkspawn to claim everything below.