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Emily (and you can call her that, too!....all Alpha Gams are on a first-name basis and we'll extend that to our Panhellenic friends <g>) writes:
"There were a number of laws governing the use of armorial designs by women. These were controlled by the fact as to whether she was maid, wife, or widow, and whether or not she was heiress in her own right. On occasion her husband might include her family shield with his. Ordinarily she displayed her family arms within a diamond or oval called a lozenge and she did not display a crest as she was a noncombatant.
"The heraldry of the American college fraternity, however, is not a compilation of family arms. It bears practically no resemblance to the inherited arms of a family but is, rather, comparable to the permanent armorial designs of cities, corporations, or perhaps more particularly to those of old guilds where craftsmanship, skill, and a common vocational interest bound many individuals together even though therer were no ties of blood."
(Note how many NPC groups use shields: AXO, AdPi, AGD, APhi, AXiD, DDD. DZ, GPhiB, KAT, KKG, SK, ZTA.....)
HTH!
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