Black humor; Utopian fiction; Utopias -- Fiction; Women -- Fiction
Terry was good-humored about it. “I don’t care what you do or don’t do
so long as we have that wedding pretty soon,” he said, reaching a strong
brown hand after Alima’s, quite as brown and nearly as strong.
“As to giving us things--of course we can see that you’d like to, but
we are glad you can’t,” Celis continued. “You see, we love you just for
yourselves--we wouldn’t want you to--to pay anything. Isn’t it enough to
know that you are loved personally--and just as men?”
Enough or not, that was the way we were married. We had a great triple
wedding in the biggest temple of all, and it looked as if most of the
nation was present. It was very solemn and very beautiful. Someone had
written a new song for the occasion, nobly beautiful, about the New Hope
for their people--the New Tie with other lands--Brotherhood as well as
Sisterhood, and, with evident awe, Fatherhood.
Terry was always restive under their talk of fatherhood. “Anybody’d
think we were High Priests of--of Philoprogenitiveness!” he protested.
“These women think of _nothing_ but children, seems to me! We’ll teach
’em!”
He was so certain of what he was going to teach, and Alima so uncertain
in her moods of reception, that Jeff and I feared the worst. We tried to
caution him--much good that did. The big handsome fellow drew himself up
to his full height, lifted that great chest of his, and laughed.
“There are three separate marriages,” he said. “I won’t interfere with
yours--nor you with mine.”
So the great day came, and the countless crowds of women, and we three
bridegrooms without any supporting “best men,” or any other men to back
us up, felt strangely small as we came forward.
Somel and Zava and Moadine were on hand; we were thankful to have them,
too--they seemed almost like relatives.
There was a splendid procession, wreathing dances, the new anthem I
spoke of, and the whole great place pulsed with feeling--the deep awe,
the sweet hope, the wondering expectation of a new miracle.
“There has been nothing like this in the country since our Motherhood
began!” Somel said softly to me, while we watched the symbolic marches.
“You see, it is the dawn of a new era. You don’t know how much you mean
to us. It is not only Fatherhood--that marvelous dual parentage to
which we are strangers--the miracle of union in life-giving--but it is
Brotherhood. You are the rest of the world. You join us to our kind--to
all the strange lands and peoples we have never seen. We hope to know
them--to love and help them--and to learn of them. Ah! You cannot know!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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