“Married people are desired to conform to the policy of the State Bureau of Population in regard to the distinctions required by it. Otherwise they are under no restriction or obligation. The population is thus kept uniform or increased or diminished in an almost exact and scientific manner. As I have already informed you, all Lunarians are by nature industrious and they take the keenest sort of pleasure in their work. Nevertheless they also play and amuse themselves, and devote much time to intellectual occupations. They have numerous societies and clubs, and the third sex people in particular are organized into associations for said purposes. So are the others also, but their club life is more or less interrupted and broken up by their connubial relations and duties. The third sex people are distinguished for their personal friendships which are very close intimate and tender and of life long constancy. These friendships founded on compatibility of character, similarity of tastes and pursuits the subtile attractions of reciprocal intellectual and spiritual qualities, we regard as finer, more elevated, more noble, more exquisite and more absorbing than the unions formed on the basis of sexual attractions, and they are notably more permanent.” “Then,” said I, “you have no jealousies of the other sexes—no envy?” “Why should we have when it is plain we are as happy—we think happier—than they? We would not change places with them, any sooner than you would with a fish, because it can dive into depths you cannot penetrate, or a bird, because it can soar where you cannot. You know you would lose by the exchange. In a society where there are no artificial distinctions on account of sex it is not possible to find any one who would willingly exchange with another. Why should not a non-marrying sex be happy? Do you not remember that one of the great teachers of earth declared that in the kingdom of heaven they neither marry nor are given in marriage? Certainly the third sex is in a better condition to comply with this celestial regulation than either of the others. The same great teacher was apparently so impressed with the superior conditions for happiness possessed by the third sex that he recommended to those of his followers who were able to receive it, to attach themselves to that sex by artificial means[3], and not a few of them have from time to time attempted to do so. But there is a vast difference between the artificial and the natural, the spurious and the genuine. Those who are of the third sex by natural development, are formed symmetrically; the brain and the mind depending on it, with its desires and aversions are formed in unison and harmony with the other bodily parts and organs.