"Laure recollected that, throughout the human species, sexual customs are among the most variable. And the most emotionally charged." (p. 763)
Too right. Earlier in Poul Anderson's Technic History, generational differences in sexual mores are mentioned in "Lodestar." In Anderson's Time Patrol series, such differences are discussed in "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth," where Carl Farness has a wife in the twentieth century and a leman in the fifth. Elsewhere, Anderson imagines a naturally monogamous rational species and how different that is.
The difference between my parents' generation and mine has been total but I had better not get into discussing that here.
In the Kirkasanter spaceship:
"Every female was accompanied by an older male relative." (p. 727)
Ye gods! Neither my daughter nor I would accept such an arrangement.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I think you are missing something. If the Kirkasanters do have an actual, instinctive urge or drive to reproduce, it would make sense for women of child bearing age to be guarded like. Families wouldn't want just anyone's blood line entering theirs unvetted.
But I agree this "guarding" of adult women is distasteful. And is all too common today, esp. among Muslims.
Ad astra! Sean
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