MAC Said:

Someone strolls into the museum and comes up to me at the front desk:
MR. ADAMS: My name is Adams. Do I belong to a clan? What is my tartan?
ME: Well, the name Adams is counted as a sept (or associated family) of the clan Gordon. [pulling out a set of swatch books and flipping it open]. This is the Gordon tartan. Since you are part of the clan, this would be your tartan.
MR. ADAMS: Hey, so that is my tartan! Neat! What are these other Gordon tartans?
ME: Well this is the standard Gordon clan tartan. You can get that in the modern, ancient, or weathered colors [I explain the difference, but that's too long to go into here]. Then you have the dress Gordon, the Old Gordon, and the Red Gordon.
MR. ADAMS: So how do I know which one is mine?
ME: They are all Clan Gordon tartans. They all represent your clan. So you can wear any of them you like.

Did you catch that? Nothing I said there was wrong, per se. But the man is asking me what is "my" tartan, which one "can I wear?" And I am telling him, this is "your" tartan, you "can" wear this one. The implicit message there is that all the other tartans are not yours and you cannot wear them.

I never said that outright, and I never would tell someone, no you can't wear that tartan. But if this person already had the idea that you are only entitled to wear certain tartans, nothing I said here would have corrected that. Indeed, unless this man and I had the time for a lengthy conversation on tartans (which he may not even be interested in), his assumption would go uncorrected.

And I have conversations like this several times every day!
Aye,
Matt

I respectfully dissagree, the Scotti were Patralinial and the Picts were Matralinial, we as modern Scots, being decended from both, then properly inheirit from both sides. English and Irish law be damned. Our entitlements as our inheiritance to the tartan should not be allowed to be dictated to us by outsiders. Instead we Scots should recognize that we are all blood kin to each other, all of us decended from kings (thus Nobel) and all of us are entitled to all tartains by enheiritance.

If a man or woman wishes to show fealty to my clan by wearing MY TARTAN than they are my brother or my sister and are welcome to do so. Just as American Citizenship is by location of your birth or by blood or by oath of aleageance. So too Scottishness, and the right to tartan.