WHITE MARS (36 page)

'No men until a week after the birth. Women must have their province. Somehow, in our struggle for equality we have lost some of the desirable privileges we once enjoyed in previous times.

'You must allow us to regain this small privilege. You will soon discover that large advantages in behaviour flow from it.'

'And what are husbands supposed to do?' I asked.

Helen's solemn face broke into a smile. 'Oh, husbands will do what they always do. Enjoy their clubs and one another's company, hobnob, have their own private places. Look, let us try out the Birth Room idea for a year. We are confident it will work well and serve the whole community.'

A Birth Room was built in the subterranean extension, despite male complaints. There women, and not only the pregnant ones, met to socialise. Men were totally excluded. After giving birth, woman and baby remained together in peace, warmth and subdued light for at least a week, or longer if they felt it necessary. When they emerged, to present the husband with his new child, a little ceremony called Reunion developed, with company, cakes and kisses. The cakes were synthetic, the kisses real enough.

The Birth Room soon became an accepted part of social life, and a respected feature of the comforts of the new extension.

18

The Debate on Sex and Marriage

Weeks turned into months, and months into another year. There were many who, despite the misfortune of their confinement on Mars, regarded our society as a fair and just one. I, on the other hand, came to see Utopia as a condition of becoming, a glow in the distance, a journey for which human limitations precluded an end. Yet there were comforting indications of improvement in our lot.

Kissorian and Sharon were among the first to take advantage of the greater scope for solitude afforded by the subterranean extensions. Their marriage was celebrated to the joy of many (and the envy of some), and they retired for a while from public life.

At the same time, the men who worked on the Smudge Project were experiencing new difficulties. One of the positive results of the recognition of Chimborazo as a life form was a closer union between scientists and non-scientists. Most of the gallant 6,000 realised that ours was one of the great scientific ages, and took pride in sharing its news. So we all felt involved when Dreiser announced that there was a minor glitch in the superfluid. At last, a signal had been received that was interpreted as the passage of a HIGMO through the ring.

Dreiser said that the Mars operation was coming to fruition as planned.

'When we have found just two more HIGMOs, or even one more, we shall finally have an approach towards an estimate of the crucial parameters of the Omega Smudge.'

'How long do we have to wait?' someone asked.

'Depends. We must be patient. Even ten or fifteen more HIGMOs will begin to give us fairly accurate values for these parameters. Various controversial issues will be settled once and for all, among other important things.' He glanced sidelong at Kathi Skadmorr, as if saying 'Don't rock the boat', when her face now came up on the Ambient.

'We should just say there are some minor anomalies about the glitch detected in the superfluid,' she said. 'Maybe we have a signal representing a HIGMO passing through the ring, maybe not. Some of us have a few worries about that. So we are waiting for the second HIGMO. As Dreiser says, we must be patient.'

But a second HIGMO was indicated only two days later.

'Well, it does seem a little fishy,' said Dreiser. 'The ring has only been in full working order for a year. I'm talking terrestrial years now, as though we were no more aware than our androids that we are on another planet.' He gave a dry chuckle. 'A year till we get a signal, then a second so soon.'

'Can't they come in groups?' I asked.

He seemed to ignore the question, muttering to someone beyond lens range. Turning to face his audience again, he said, 'There's something particularly odd about the signature of this second glitch. It's not the form we expected. You see, there's a gradual oscillatory build-up instead of the anticipated almost clean "step-function" you'd expect from a HIGMO. You have to appreciate that the first glitch took us unawares. Full details of its profile were not obtained.

'We'll keep you posted.'

So we had to get on with our lives. The betterment of conditions brought about by the development of Lower Ground, as we called it, improved everyone's morale. But, as with many improvements, these would not guarantee lasting contentment. I had taken a liking to Dayo Obantuji, the anxious young Nigerian, who showed great interest in our circumstances. We often discussed the developments of Lower Ground. Having abandoned musical composition, Dayo proved adept at devising decorative tile patterns, bursting with life and colour, to adorn the main corridor.

But I said to him, 'If we look back to the metropolises of the nineteenth century, we see filthy cities. In New York and Paris and London, filth and grit and stench were permanent features of life. These cities - London in particular - were coal-oriented. There was coal everywhere, coal dumped down chutes in the street, coal dragged upstairs, coal spilt and burned in a million grates, grimy smoke, cinders and ash strewn here and there.

'The exudations of coal mingled with the droppings of the horses that dragged the coal carts through the streets and pulled all kinds of carriages and cabs. The whole place was a microclimate of filth. The twentieth century saw vast improvements. Coal was banished, smokeless zones were introduced. The noisome fogs of London became a thing of the past. Electric heating developed into central heating and air-conditioning. Solar-heating panels replaced chimneys. Animals disappeared from the streets, to be replaced by automobiles, which - at least until they multiplied beyond tolerance and were banished from our cities - brought a decided improvement to urban life.

'And was the new comfort and ease of the home, reinforced by vacuum-cleaners and other devices that made homes more hygienic, considered Utopian? Not at all. The improvements came in gradually and, once there, were taken for granted.'

'I wish they could have been taken for granted where I came from,' said Dayo. 'Our governments never had the interests of the people at heart.'

'To greater or lesser extent,' I said, 'that is the characteristic of all governments. It happened that in Western countries an educated population had a strong enough voice to regulate or become government. That educated class also accumulated the capital to invest in sustained improvement, which has in itself promoted more improvement, often in unanticipated spheres.

'To give an instance of the sort of thing I'm thinking of, back in the 1930s, in the fairly early days of motoring, an ordinary family found that a small car was within its price range; they could buy what was called, in those bygone days, "the freedom of the road".

'Crude though methods of contraception were in those days, the family then had a choice: another baby or a Baby Austin? Another mouth to feed or a T-model Ford? By opting for the car, they lowered population growth rates, which improved family living standards and encouraged the liberation of women.'

Dayo looked moody. 'In Nigeria it is scarcely possible to speak of the liberation of women. Yet when I think how intelligent my mother was - far more clever than my father...' Looking at the floor, he added, 'I wish I was dead when I think how I behaved to her - learned behaviour, of course ... Now she's gone and it's too late to make amends.'

Because I was afflicted by a migraine, Belle Rivers and Crispin Barcunda conducted the debate on sex and marriage. The motion was opposed by John Homer Bateson and Beau Stephens.

Bateson began in his most flowery manner: 'To look back over the history of matrimony is to recoil from the cruelty of it. Love between a man and a woman hardly enters into the picture. It all comes down to a question of property and dowry and enslavement, either and most probably of the woman by the man, or of the man by the woman. As a woman by name Greer or Green said last century, "For a woman to effect any amelioration in her condition, she must refuse to marry."

'I would say too for a man to attain the detachment that wisdom brings, he also must refuse to marry. He must quell the lust to possess, which lies at the base of this question. The woman, until recently, was legally bound to give up everything, her freedom, even her name, while the man was supposed to give up his freedom of choice and to apply himself, sooner or later, to the expense of the rearing of the children he conceived on his wife.

'Thus, while the word "wedding" may cause some excitement in some breasts, somewhat like the word "mealtime", the excitement is evanescent as the true nature of marriage dawns on the wedded pair. They must then contrive somehow to love their demanding offspring, who, it is fair to say, are most unlikely to requite that love by reciprocal affection or gratitude.

'We have already made what to my mind is overdue provision for children here - not to mention their careless addition to our population. Let them go - as the saying used to be - "on the parish", into the care of Belle Rivers and her professional carers. Let there continue to be the usual conjunction of overheated bodies, men with women, women with women, and men with men. But let us not consider the continuance on Mars of matrimony in any shape or form. We are imprisoned enough as it is.'

Bateson sat down and Crispin took the stand. 'The genial Oliver Goldsmith remarked that a man who married and brought up his family did more service to the community than he who remained single and complained about the growing population. The outburst of misogyny we have just heard takes no account of love. I know it's a word that covers a multitude of sins as well as virtues, but if we weigh love against its opposite, hatred, then we see how easily love wins.

'True, marriage once involved property. That's history. In any case, Upstairs here we have no property beyond our persons. Now we marry to make public our commitment to each other, and to ensure, as far as that is possible, the stability of our lives for the enhancement of our children's most tender years.

'If we do not want children, then we need not marry, but must take precautions until lust gives out and we forsake our partner for another.

'How satisfactory that is, I leave you to judge, but it would be folly to legislate against it. Is free love a prescription for contentment? I remind you of the old joke I heard in the Seychelles long ago. "Remember, no matter how pretty the next girl is who comes along, somewhere in her background there's a guy who got sick of her shit and nonsense."' He showed his gold tooth in a wide grin, before adding, 'And that goes for the other sex as well, ladies...

'I can tell you now that I believe, on the other hand, that there is something ennobling about marriage and constancy, and that those qualities should be encouraged in our constitution. So convinced of their virtue am I that I'm proud to say Belle and I - despite some difference in our ages - intend to marry soon.' He burst out laughing with joy, gesturing gallantly towards Belle.

Belle immediately rose to her feet. She was seen to blush. 'Oh, that was meant to be a secret!' she cried, between tears and laughter herself. He put his arms round her and they clung together.

I wished that Kissorian and Sharon could have been present, but we had not seen them for a while. 'After this display, we're bound to win,' Cang Hai whispered to me.

But Beau Stephens now rose, frowning. 'Friends, this is a disgraceful spectacle, carefully rehearsed, no doubt, to persuade us to vote with our hearts instead of our heads. If these two rather ageing people are emotionally involved with each other, it is better it should be kept secret than acted out before us in this embarrassing charade.

'The case against marriage is that it is out-of-date and has become merely an opportunity for display and sentiment. Present-day ethics are against the whole idea. After the party's over, and the gifts mauled about and complained of, before the confetti's trampled into the mud of the pavement, most couples get divorced, only to indulge in legal wrangles that may continue for some years.

'That's when we see that marriage is simply about property and lust. It shows no care for any children. It's dishonest - another bad old custom that must go, if only to impoverish the lawyers.

'You seem fond of quoting, so I'll give you a quote from Nietzsche, whose
Also Sprach Zarathustra
I read in my university days. As far as I recall, Nietzsche takes a spiritual view. He says that you should first be mature enough to face the challenge of marriage, so that marriage can enable you both to grow. You should have children who will profit by your spirituality, to become greater than you are. He calls marriage the will of two people to create a someone who is more than those who created it.

'This is a rigorous view of marriage, I know, but, as a child of divorced parents who hated each other, I took stock of Nietzsche's words. The gross side of marriage has killed it as an institution.

'What we propose should be written into our constitution is that marriage is forbidden. No more marriages. Instead, an unbreakable contract to produce and rear children. Demanding, yes, but with it will come benefits and support from the state.

'This unbreakable contract may be signed and sealed by any two people determined to devote themselves to creating the brilliant and loving kind of child Belle Rivers thinks can be produced by an impractical rank on rank of shrinks. The new contract cannot be broken by divorce. Divorce is also forbidden. So it will be respected by one and all. Outside of that contract, free love can prevail, much as it does now - but with severe penalties for any couple producing unwanted babies.'