Blish,James – And all the Stars a Stage

might easily have destroyed the immemorial family system entirely, by

making sexual relations so free of any unwanted consequence that they could

hardly seem worth the price of a lifetime contract, especially to the

innately roving-eyed male. (“In fact,” one of the leading doctors of the

time had remarked in an immortal burst of unconscious humor, “venereal

disease is now almost as pleasant to cure as it is to catch.”) Legal

protection could still be afforded the woman afflicted with an accident of

impulse, since modern genetics made it possible to determine the parents of

any child ninety-nine times out of a hundred by blood tests alone.

That much had been predicted, by one of the most brilliant novelists of the

period; but it had not worked out that way-not entirely~_and for this Jorn

had reluctantly to give the credit to Selektrojel. Sexual customs were

indeed immensely less constrained now than they had been in the times of

Jorn’s grandparents, but the family had not been shattered. Being able to

choose the sex of their children had given people-enough of a stake in the

family system to turn the tide in favor of retaining it. To be sure, the

present prevalence of harems of male concubines, and the way women

officeholders had of recruiting male staffs

14 James Blish

by marrying them-that was not yet official, but it would become so on the

inevitable day when the first woman World Director was elected and chose her

cabinet that way-would have stunned and revolted Jorn’s grandparents, but it

was still recognizably a family system …