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.

I think he meant racially as in "human race". But I'm guessing.

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

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.

human race

Okay, that makes more sense.

Oh, that made me so mad. And I loved the book up to that point.

But he implies that the people who follow the Luna-type marriages are Just Too Smart to overpopulate.

I think it has less to do with being smart and more with helping raise like 20 other people's kids from the minute one joins the daisy chain. Best birth control method, ever.

I think Heinlein enjoyed provoking people--provoking them into thinking about things they took for granted, their assumptions, and possible alternatives.

I don't think he necessarily expected his readers to agree with what he wrote. I seem to recall remarks in an essay (I'm not sure if it was by Heinlein or about him) about not mistaking a storyteller's product for his personal opinions, but I can't find the quote.

I think Heinlein wanted readers to think about why they agreed or disagreed.

In TMiaHM he did that with the purpose, form, and function of government on a small scale (the family) and on a large scale (the nation).

There are two quotes that have stuck with me since I first read TMiaHM as a teenager:

"Under what circumstances is it moral for a group to do that which is not moral for a member of that group to do alone?"

and

"Don't reject the idea merely because it seems preposterous--think about it!" [emphasis mine]

"Don't reject the idea merely because it seems preposterous--think about it!" [emphasis mine]

Yes. We'll all think about a great big orgy with our second cousins once removed, Bob.

The thing that makes me most want to bust Heinlen in the teeth is the smarmy way he covers up the fact that all he wants to do is fuck and not pay taxes by pretending to be a great philosopher.

WhatEV, Bob. If you want to hump your in-laws, that's cool. Just don't try to tell me it's an important part of a great libertarian utopia that is of course the right way to go. But no, you're not serious, you just want me to think, but I can't really think Bob, when of course all I want to do is marry into your family and carry your seed, as is my role.

Silly me. *gigglelolomigod*

Wow. I wonder if I've transferred a portion of my Dubya hate to Heinlen, because I found it so impossible to hate someone so much that I had to wring out the excess onto Heinlen.