I like lots of Heinlein, I really do, but a lot of things piss me off.
Like any of that's enough to fight the Dark Master. Bator.
Xander ,'Lessons'
The Minearverse 3: The Network Is a Harsh Mistress
[NAFDA] "There will be an occasional happy, so that it might be crushed under the boot of the writer." From Zorro to Angel (including Wonderfalls and The Inside), this is where Buffistas come to anoint themselves in the bloodbath.
Strix - Jan 26, 2005 11:16:48 am PST #4085 of 10001
A dress should be tight enough to show you're a woman but loose enough to flee from zombies. — Ginger
Betsy HP - Jan 26, 2005 11:24:04 am PST #4086 of 10001
If I only had a brain...
The thing is, Heinlein is a product of the turn of the 19th century trying to be sexually progressive. He thinks he's daring because women get to take the initiative and sleep around if they want to. That's racy stuff for 1950. It's just that the century zipped past him.
aurelia - Jan 26, 2005 11:28:31 am PST #4087 of 10001
All sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story. Tell me a story.
So, it's sort of a communal "it takes a village" approach with the word marriage and some seniority rules attached?
Does overpopulation as a potential threat to survival ever enter the equation?
(Stipulated: there are individuals, both sexes, who prefer to live alone. This is racially self-correcting.)
It's the word "racially" in this that confuses me. Was he attributing the preference to a racially genetic trait?
Kat - Jan 26, 2005 11:30:53 am PST #4088 of 10001
"I keep to a strict diet of ill-advised enthusiasm and heartfelt regret." Leigh Bardugo
Aurelia, racially, I think is meant not as what race are you, but racially correcting, like correcting within the entire human race.
Betsy HP - Jan 26, 2005 11:30:59 am PST #4089 of 10001
If I only had a brain...
So, it's sort of a communal "it takes a village" approach with the word marriage and some seniority rules attached?
Right. It's a gedankenexperiment. What happens if you do Australia all over again, but this time without the Christianity and with women having the right of sexual refusal? Heinlein's thesis is that you come up with lots of alternate forms of marriage, most of them polygynous.
-t - Jan 26, 2005 11:31:04 am PST #4090 of 10001
I am a woman of various inclinations and only some of the time are they to burn everything down in frustration
I think he meant racially as in "human race". But I'm guessing.
Strix - Jan 26, 2005 11:37:15 am PST #4091 of 10001
A dress should be tight enough to show you're a woman but loose enough to flee from zombies. — Ginger
Does overpopulation as a potential threat to survival ever enter the equation?
He does a spiel about Mathusian theory in TSbtS, um, and in a lot of his stories, overcrowding is a main reason humans colonize the Moon, and go into space in general. And in I Will Fear No Evil, people get assigned how many kids they're allowed to have.
But he implies that the people who follow the Luna-type marriages are Just Too Smart to overpopulate.
EDIT
MALTHUSIAN theory
Betsy HP - Jan 26, 2005 11:45:16 am PST #4092 of 10001
If I only had a brain...
And in I Will Fear No Evil, people get assigned how many kids they're allowed to have.
Also in Podkayne of Mars. Whose point, according to the unabridged edition, was that Silly Girls Shouldn't Expect To Have It All. I think I'll stick to the abridged edition, ta ever so.
aurelia - Jan 26, 2005 11:53:30 am PST #4093 of 10001
All sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story. Tell me a story.
human race
Okay, that makes more sense.
Strix - Jan 26, 2005 12:09:04 pm PST #4094 of 10001
A dress should be tight enough to show you're a woman but loose enough to flee from zombies. — Ginger
Oh, that made me so mad. And I loved the book up to that point.