raised within the tradition. Most had received only local training and had not attended any major religious centres, so their acceptance of Mani life was no different from other inhabitants. In reality, what could the church have done to prevent the feuds? The Earl of Carnarvon asked the same question and wrote "My Maniat friend observed that they (priests) would have been in danger had they interfered, but that they pursued a prudent course in saying that they had nothing to do with points of honour." Besides, the Maniats themselves were usually very devout and adhered strictly to their Christian beliefs as Col. Leake observed when he wrote, "No people are more rigorous in the observances of the Greek Church than the Maniats. A Kakavuliote (Maniat from Mesa Mani), who would make a merit of hiding himself behind the wall of a ruined chapel, for the purpose of avenging the loss of a relative upon some member of the offending family, would think it a crime to pass the same ruin, be it ever so small a relict of the original building, without crossing himself seven, or at least three, times."
The Earl of Carnarvon also remarked on this contrast between strict religious observance and casual disregard for killing. "I was eating some fowl in one of their rude dwellings on a Friday. 'I would not do that for all that the world could give me,' said a young Mainote chief, who had been much with me, and whose hands were red with a hundred murders.
'But,' observed my muleteer, with the freedom so common in these countries, 'you would think nothing of killing a man.'
'Oh no,' replied my Mainote friend, 'but eating meat on a Friday is a crime.'"
Not only did the church condone Aftothikia, but by acknowledging it as the only available system, on occasion resorted to the use of it themselves. Col. Leake recorded an incident which occurred two months before he went to the Mani, when the son of a priest had accidentally killed a boy who was related to another priest. "The latter papas declared war against the former, which is done in Mani in a formal manner, by crying out in the streets. The first papas went to his church to say mass with pistols in his girdle; such being a common custom in Mani; but as usual in such cases, he laid them behind the altar, on assuming the robe in which the priest performs divine service. The other papas entered the church with some of his party, and the instant the office was concluded, walked up to his enemy, who was still in his robes, and fired a pistol at him, which flashed in the pan (failed to fire properly): the latter, then running behind the altar, seized his arms, shot his enemy and one of his adherents, and drove all the rest from the church. The affair was then settled by the interposition of the Bey himself, in whose village it had happened." 
Another example of the church tolerating and even condoning activities which would seem to be the reverse of doctrine elsewhere, was concerning piracy. The Maniats were famed and feared as pirates and the coastline of the peninsula was a place for shipping to avoid whenever possible. The peninsula had been subjected to raids throughout history and piracy was considered a legitimate response to this and also provided goods which would not otherwise be available and for which there was never the money to trade. Not only were the pirate boats blessed by the priests to encourage success but priests frequently accompanied the boats on their forays and raids.
Such a violent existence, which also included fighting off invaders and raiders, took a heavy toll of manpower and the greatest asset to any family or clan was the amount of men who could fight on its behalf. The birth of a son, often called a 'gun', was a major event and the birth of a daughter was by contrast, a virtual disaster.
This paramount need for men resulted in large families as Leake said when he stayed at the tower of Katzanos in Skoutari, "Katzano has twenty five persons in his family, of whom nine are his children; he married at the age of nineteen, his wife was fourteen; they have had fifteen children." If a wife failed to provide sons, the husband could marry again, without a divorce from the first wife, and if the second wife bore sons, they were considered legitimate.
The Earl of Carnarvon attended a wedding in Kita where he was told that the first wife had not had any children, so the groom was taking a second wife. "On my asking some further questions, it appeared that his first marriage had indeed given him three daughters; but my informant repeated his statement that there were no children - so completely are girls counted as nothing in this country. One of my muleteers clinched the argument by the additional question of - how could a man wish to have anything to do with a woman who brought him no sons?" This attitude conveniently overlooked the role that some women had played in warfare - not least of all at Pyrgos Dirou in 1826 when women saved the day against a Turkish invading force of 1,500 men - only 13 years prior to Carnarvon's visit and only a few kilometres away!
Leake also reported that many women were good shots and one offered to put a musket ball through his hat at 150 yards range but he declined. "I had too much regard for my only hat to trust her, for she has had two wounds in battle, and affects to consider her husband as no braver than he should be."