Herland [61]
--their father's names, that is."
"And what becomes of them?" asked Alima.
"They change them for their husbands', my dear," Terry answered her.
"Change them? Do the husbands then take the wives' `maiden names'?"
"Oh, no," he laughed. "The man keeps his own and gives it to her, too."
"Then she just loses hers and takes a new one--how unpleasant! We won't do that!" Alima said decidedly.
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!"
Thousands of voices rose in the soaring climax of that great Hymn of The Coming Life. By the great Altar of Motherhood, with its crown of fruit and flowers, stood a new one, crowned as well. Before the Great Over Mother of the Land and her ring of High Temple Counsellors, before that vast multitude of calm- faced mothers and holy-eyed maidens, came forward our own three chosen ones, and we, three men alone in all that land, joined hands with them and made our marriage vows.
CHAPTER 11
Our Difficulties
We say, "Marriage is a lottery"; also "Marriages are made in Heaven"--but this is not so widely accepted as the other.
We have a well-founded theory that it is best to marry "in one's class," and certain well-grounded suspicions of international marriages, which seem to persist in the interests of social progress, rather than in those of the contracting parties.
But no combination of alien races, of color, of
"And what becomes of them?" asked Alima.
"They change them for their husbands', my dear," Terry answered her.
"Change them? Do the husbands then take the wives' `maiden names'?"
"Oh, no," he laughed. "The man keeps his own and gives it to her, too."
"Then she just loses hers and takes a new one--how unpleasant! We won't do that!" Alima said decidedly.
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!"
Thousands of voices rose in the soaring climax of that great Hymn of The Coming Life. By the great Altar of Motherhood, with its crown of fruit and flowers, stood a new one, crowned as well. Before the Great Over Mother of the Land and her ring of High Temple Counsellors, before that vast multitude of calm- faced mothers and holy-eyed maidens, came forward our own three chosen ones, and we, three men alone in all that land, joined hands with them and made our marriage vows.
CHAPTER 11
Our Difficulties
We say, "Marriage is a lottery"; also "Marriages are made in Heaven"--but this is not so widely accepted as the other.
We have a well-founded theory that it is best to marry "in one's class," and certain well-grounded suspicions of international marriages, which seem to persist in the interests of social progress, rather than in those of the contracting parties.
But no combination of alien races, of color, of