Allyson -- Yup. I'm always around. Because I actually am solitary, heh.
Any night but Friday is fine. Just give me a heads-up so I'm off the phone.
Jon B. --
What makes you think that preferring to live alone is a genetic trait, passed down from parent to child?
I was just trying to paraphrase so it's not my opinion, but that's not what I said. It doesn't matter if it's genetic or learned; it's still self-correcting. If it's genetic, the genes aren't going to become dominant. If it's learned behavior, then there's nobody around to whom you can teach it. And if (and this is my personal opinion) it's due to a combination of a thousand tiny things, it's not likely to be a problem.
I think RAH's train of thought was "Here's how families are changing, and may continue to change, and before you say 'maybe we'll all live alone' here's why I don't think that's likely, and anyway...." It's a one-sentence parenthetical note.
Okay. Line marriage as proposed by Heinlein works like this.
I marry Tim. Tim marries ita. ita marries Mark Dacascos. Mark marries Kate Winslet. And so on. Each new person is joining the Hanes Perry marriage. (It's named after me because I thought of it. So there.) New partners have to be approved by the existing members of the marriage. The Hanes Perry marriage owns property in common and raises children of the marriage together. The marriage's children do NOT marry back into the lineage.
P.S. Everybody is heterosexual because this is a middle-period Heinlein novel.
So, you're not married to Mark or Kate, Betsy? They're just in your line?
And everyone but you gets to be married to two people at a time?
Ok, but is there back and forth along the line? Is ita restricted to Tim and Mark, or can she mess around with you and Kate Winslet if the spirit moves her?
Or, if the het thing messes things up, say Kate then marries Sean. Free for all, or do you and ita just get to gnash your teeth jealously?
I'm married to everybody in the line. Everybody is married to everybody else. You just sign up boy, girl, boy, girl in order.
The way I should have put it: I marry Tim. Tim and I marry ita. Tim, ita, and I marry Mark. And so on. So when Kate marries Sean, ita and I are in clover. Assuming it's Sean Bean. If it's Sean William Scott, ita and I exercise our veto power.
Because this is middle-period Heinlein, it never even occurs to ita and me to mess around with Kate. What a waste.
It's essentially a way of dodging inheritance taxes.
As originally conceived, it's a way of setting up a stable family in an environment that is both very dangerous and woman-poor. (Yes, the boy-girl rotation doesn't work with that. It's presented as one family's habit. Don't yell at me, yell at Heinlein.) If you have two mothers and three fathers in the family, when a parent dies, there are still several people around to raise the kids.
Is there a limit to the number of people in a line marriage? I'm having fun making mine up, but I think it could get unwieldy.
And Tim, as first husband, at age 102, has the right to bed down with all teh new wives first, right-o?
