hm, I think I would not like to see my alt as an underling of my main. so I was thinking of your idea as a role-play-attempt - but it seems I was wrong. Besides I don't want people always to see who's playing - it's like masquerade.
I can imagine your idea in a STF-function-like way. Like I said, optional.
And maybe on the same base something like low-level item sharing for all alts for those people who want to see their alts as a warband (so still main remains knight or leader and pays their upkeep), you could call them MERC, and/or something else.
and seriosly: "not entirely dumb". wtf?
Oh, sorry about that, the german phrase "gar nicht so blöd" is not as hard as my badly translated wannabe-counterpart. I thought as you are talking about raping and such, I didn't think of you beeing offended by this, and it was honestly meant as an approval. I should have said: "nice idea, but lacks something, imho".