‘This is a rigorous view of marriage, I know, but, as a child of divorced parents who hated each other, I took stock of Nietzsche’s words. The gross side of marriage has killed it as an institution.
‘What we propose should be written into our constitution is that marriage is forbidden. No more marriages. Instead, an unbreakable contract to produce and rear children. Demanding, yes, but with it will come benefits and support from the state.
‘This unbreakable contract may be signed and sealed by any two people determined to devote themselves to creating the brilliant and loving kind of child Belle Rivers thinks can be produced by an impractical rank on rank of shrinks. The new contract cannot be broken by divorce. Divorce is also forbidden. So it will be respected by one and all. Outside of that contract, free love can prevail, much as it does now – but with severe penalties for any couple producing unwanted babies.’
Stephens sat down in a dense silence as the forum chewed over what he had said.
Crispin slowly rose to his feet. ‘Beau has been talking about breeding, not marriage. Just because his – or rather, Nietzsche’s – ideas are admirable in their way, that doesn’t make them practical. They’re too extreme. We could not tolerate being locked for ever into a twosome that had proved to have lost its original inspiration, or to have found no other inspiration. To grow as Beau suggests, we must be free. We offer no such draconian answer as Beau proposes, to a question that has defeated wiser heads than ours.’ He sighed, and continued more slowly.
‘But we do know that a marriage is as good as the society in which it flourishes – or fails … It may be that when our just society is fully established the ancient ways of getting married – and of getting divorced where necessary – will prove to be adequate. How adequate they are must depend not on laws, which can be broken, but on the people who try to abide by them.
‘Marriage remains a lawful and honourable custom. We must just try to love better, and for that we shall have the assistance of our improved society.’
He sat down, looking rather dejected. There was a moment’s silence. Then a wave of applause broke out.
At this period, I felt dizzy and sick and little able to carry on with my work. I seemed to hear curious sounds, somewhat between the bleat of a goat and the cry of a gull. Even the presence of other people became burdensome.
There was an upper gallery, little frequented, which I sought out, and where I could sit in peace, gazing out at the Martian lithosphere. From this viewpoint, looking westward, I could see the sparsely fractured plain, where the fractures ran in parallel, as if ruled with a ruler. These lines had been there – at least by human standards – for ever! Time had frozen them. Only the play or withdrawal of the Sun’s light changed. At one time of day, I caught from this vantage point the glint of the Sun on a section of the ring of the Smudge Project.
Visiting the gallery on the day following the marriage debate, I found someone already present. The discovery was the more unwelcome because the man lounging there was John Homer Bateson, who had displayed such misanthropy in his speech.
It was too late to turn back. Bateson acknowledged my presence with a nod. He began to speak without preliminaries, perhaps fearing I might bring up the topic of the recent debate.
‘I take it that you do not subscribe to this popular notion that Olympus Mons is a living thing? Why is it that poor suffering humanity cannot bear to think itself alone in the universe, but must be continually inventing alternative life forms, from gods to cartoon characters?
‘Make no mistake, Jefferies, however industriously you busy yourself with schemes for a just society, which can never come about, constituting as it does merely another Judeo-Christian illusion, we are all going to die here on Mars.’
I reminded him that we were looking for a new and better way to live – on which score I remained optimistic.