8

On the morning of his forty–fourth birthday Rud sat down at the head of the table in the place reserved for him, and regardless of what the Group might be discussing at the moment, said: "Well, tell me all about it…"

They had come to the position of women in the new world. "We were saying," said Chiffan, "that women have played a curiously small part in the Revolution."

"So far as I know," said Rud with conviction, "they haven't played any part at all. What are you working upon now here?"

"They constitute fifty–seven per cent of the species," said Chiffan.

"Well, the Fundamental Law provides that there shall be no discrimination of race, religion, class, sex?"

"Wait a moment," said Bodisham. "Sex?

"We provide," said Bodisham, "that there shall be no legal disqualification or handicap on account of sex, but that does not end the matter. First we have to consider that vast mass of human beings, which is already expanding proportionately again, Norvel's particular field, the young below the age of citizenship, and next and linked to that we have certain occasions between man and woman. How far does the law interfere?"

"As little as possible," said Chiffan.

"In every affair the law must interfere as little as possible. The Fundamental Law makes that clear."

Norvel spoke. "We have to consider first of all the supply of children in the world. Sooner or later we may have to forbid marriage—no, not marriage, but bearing and begetting—to certain definable types. Biological science isn't so sure yet—but it will get sure. That is as much a part of the World Health Service as the compulsory notification of infectious diseases and the establishment of cordons."

"It will be liable to abuses," said Dreed.

Bodisham raised his eyebrows by way of reply. Every law is liable to abuses.

"All that sort of thing is pretty straight sailing," said Chiffan. "There is no dispute about the principles involved. The real problem is just how far the modern world can regulate—embraces."

Rud scowled at him. "That," he said, "is part of the individual life. There is no need even to talk about it here."

"You think that apart from licensing parenthood and subsidising motherhood," said Roots, "the state should leave sex alone."

"Embraces," corrected Chiffan, heedless of Rud's objection. "Embraces! You can't ignore the social aspects of sex, you can leave the actual embraces alone, but you can't avoid the social recognition of the groupings that ensue."

"There have always been marital rights," said Dreed, unheeded. "But were they ever—enforced?"

"It affects our housing projects, for example," said Chiffan. "Whom do we embrace and where and when? Are we to build for monogamy, polygamy, polyandry, promiscuity?…"

"There is no such thing as promiscuity," said Norvel.

"Well—an obliging looseness, let us say. An amiable laxity. Is this new world ahead to be a world of tight little, right little homes, or a patriarchal kraal or a sprawl of lovers against a background of maternity homes and foundling hospitals? I admit every day and in every way, parentage becomes less involuntary. It seems to me that this also releases human affectionateness at a less austere level. Cupid with his bandage off and armed with a revolver. Still—

"That would be a problem for the constructive ministries to meet, according to the varying local requirements," said Roots.

"It is remarkable," said Dreed, "that we should be sitting here discussing the future of all womankind on earth, without a single woman present. Ought we not?"

"We don't want any women here," said Rud. "They would take sides where we differed, but they would contribute nothing."

"They would demand complete control of the whole business," said Norvel. "With a certain air of reasonableness they would say it was their particular business."

"And they would do nothing whatever about it," said Rud. "We don't want women here. We don't want them."

"Not even to give evidence?" said Norvel.

"What an inquisition!" chuckled Chiffan, manifestly amused. "I can imagine—"

He stopped short at the sight of Rud's scowl.

"I suggest that the Fundamental Law deal with the young and with any eugenic aspects of the matter, and leave all the rest to the natural development of social life," said Rud.

"Nevertheless," Norvel persisted, "I think we ought to have some representative women here. We ought either to make a special committee of them to report and suggest, or bring them into consultation."

"What are representative women?" demanded Rud, with a gust of impatience. "What makes them?" And then, as if the whole question was too trivial for his attention, he pushed back his chair, rose slowly and departed.

Chiffan watched him go.

"And now?" began Norvel…

"Being a woman so far has been the major profession of the species," said Roots. "In a few specialised forms it is grossly overpaid; in nine hundred and ninety–nine cases in the thousand it has been abominably underpaid. It is not so much a sweated industry as a bluffed and racketeered one. Being a wife is still the main profession of women in the world, and yet the financial and well–disciplinary conditions of two people, married or not, who are living together, amount generally to a fight for the upper hand. It is a fight very much out of the cognizance of the law. Most of the events occur without witnesses, both sides have an age–long tradition of lying abominably about the other, and at the same time standing up for each other, and interference between husband and wife is consequently very difficult.

"But it is only in the intimate life that interference is difficult. Economically the problem is much simpler. An increasing number of women are taking up professions now; at architecture, catering, various industries, normal teaching, secretarial work, hospital work, for example, they are practically as good as men or better, and there we need only carry out the principle of absolute equality. And it seems economically and socially convenient to make motherhood a paid social service. If that is done and if the allowances go to the mother, with a reasonable right of the father and the local authority to intervene in cases of cruelty or negligence, we shall have put womankind for the first time in history on a fair and equal footing with men, so far as economic freedom goes. Nothing need prevent a woman being a man's salaried housekeeper or his nurse or what not with or without marriage. If she enters into a form of marriage involving a contract, that contract will be subject to the laws we shall certainly impose for the limitation, periodic revision and annulment of unreasonable and undesirable clauses in all contracts. There the Fundamental Law stops short. Sexual amour–propre, jealousy, what are called marital rights and so forth are no concern of the state's. If they lead to crimes the law deals with the crime. All that seems very simple."

"The World State, I take it," said Bodisham, "will protect individual freedom, from conception to cremation. It will protect individual freedom from menace and monopolisation. It will protect the young from any premature decisions they will be unable to reverse. It may also presently set about protecting the young from diseased or defective parentage. As our knowledge of dysgenic processes advances. Beyond what is implied by that much protection, it will leave men and women absolutely free to conduct themselves as they choose. There lies the scope for a free literature, novels, dramas, poetry, spectacle, suggestion, inspiration, exaltation of every sort turning upon conduct and interpretation. There may be cults. We have to prepare for life in unprecedented profusion and variety…But the state has to stand aside from all that."