Stranger in a Strange Land

“Ask Saul. He might use the present corporation, or he might bankrupt it. Or it might be left untouched for a century or two. But besides bankers and brokers, consider any other occupation. How can a school teacher teach a child who knows more than she does and won’t hold still for mistaken teaching? What becomes of physicians and dentists when people are truly healthy? What happens to the cloak & suit industry and to the I.L.G.W.U. when clothing isn’t really needed at all and women aren’t so endlessly interested in dressing up (they’ll never lose interest entirely)—and nobody gives a damn if he’s caught with his arse bare? What shape does ‘the Farm Problem’ take when weeds can be told not to grow and crops can be harvested without benefit of International Harvester or John Deere? Just name it; it changes beyond recognition when the discipline is applied. Take just one change that will shake both the sanctity of marriage—in its present form—and the sanctity of property. Jubal, do you have any idea how much is spent each year in this country on Malthusian drugs and devices?”

“I have a fairly exact idea, Sam. Almost a billion dollars on oral contraceptives alone this last fiscal year… more than half of which was for patent nostrums about as useful as corn starch.”

“Oh, yes, you’re a medical man.”

“Only in passing. A pack rat mind.”

“Either way. What happens to that big industry—and to the shrill threats of moralists—when a female can conceive only when she elects to as an act of volition, when also she is immune to disease, cares only for the approval of her own sort… and has her orientation so changed that she desires intercourse with a whole-heartedness that Cleopatra never dreamed of—but any male who tried to rape her would die so quickly, if she so grokked, that he wouldn’t know what hit him? When women are free of guilt and fear—but invulnerable other than by decision of self? Hell, the pharmaceutical industry will be just a passing casualty—what other industries, laws, institutions, attitudes, prejudices, and nonsense must give way?”

“I don’t grok its fullness,” admitted Jubal. “It concerns a subject that has been of little direct interest to me in quite a while.”

“One institution won’t be damaged by it. Marriage.”

“So?”

“Very much so. Instead it will be purged, strengthened, and made endurable. Endurable? Ecstatic! See that wench down there with the long black hair?”

“Yes. I was delighting in its beauty earlier.”

“She knows it’s beautiful and it’s grown a foot and a half longer since we joined the church. That’s my wife. Not much over a year ago we lived together about like bad-tempered dogs. She was jealous… and I was inattentive. Bored. Hell, we were both bored and only our kids kept us together—that and her possessiveness; I knew she would never let me go without a fight and a scandal… and I didn’t have any stomach for trying to put together a new marriage at my age, anyhow. So I got a little on the side, when I could get away with it—a college professor has many temptations, few safe opportunities—and Ruth was quietly bitter. Or sometimes not so quiet. And then we joined up.” Sam grinned happily. “And I fell in love with my own wife. Number-one gal friend.”

Sam’s words had been very quiet, an intimate conversation walled by noise of eating and cheerful company. His wife was far down the table. She looked up and said clearly, “That’s an exaggeration, Jubal. I think I’m about number six.”

Her husband called out, “Stay out of my mind, beautiful!—we’re talking men talk. Give Larry your undivided attention.” He picked up a hard roll, threw it at her.

She stopped it in mid-trajectory, threw it back at him while continuing to talk; Sam caught it and buttered it. “I’m giving Larry all the attention he wants… until later, maybe. Jubal, that brute didn’t let me finish. Number-six place is wonderful! Because my name wasn’t even on the list till we joined the church. I hadn’t rated as high as six with Sam in the past twenty years.” She did then turn her attention back to Larry.

“The real point,” Sam said quietly, “is that we two are now partners, much more than we ever were even at the best period in our outside marriage—and we got that way through the training, culminating in sharing and growing closer with others who had the same training. We all wind up in twosome partnerships inside the larger group—usually, but not necessarily, with our own spouses-of-record. Sometimes not… and if not, the readjustment takes place with no heartache and a warmer, closer, better relationship between the soidisant ‘divorced’ couple than ever, both in bed and out. No loss and all gain. Shucks, this pairing as partners needn’t even be between man and woman. Dawn and Jill for example—they work together like an acrobatic team.”

“Hmm… I suppose,” Jubal said thoughtfully, “that I had thought of those two as being Mike’s wives.”