Brian Aldiss - White Mars

Bateson sat down and Crispin took the stand. “The genial Oliver Goldsmith remarked that a man who married and brought up his family did more service to the community than he who remained single and complained about the growing population. The outburst of misogyny we have just heard takes no account of love. I know it’s a word that covers a multitude of sins as well as virtues, but if we weigh love against its opposite, hatred, then we see how easily love wins.

“True, marriage once involved property. That’s history. In any case, Upstairs here we have no property beyond our persons. Now we marry to make public our commitment to each other, and to ensure, as far as that is possible, the stability of our lives for the enhancement of our children’s most tender years.

“If we do not want children, then we need not marry, but must take precautions until lust gives out and we forsake our partner for another.

“How satisfactory that is, I leave you to judge, but it would be folly to legislate against it. Is free love a prescription for contentment? I remind you of the old joke I heard in the Seychelles long ago. ‘Remember, no matter how pretty the next girl is who comes along, somewhere in her background there’s a guy who got sick of her shit and nonsense.’ ” He showed his gold tooth in a wide grin, before adding, “And that goes for the other sex as well, ladies…

“I can tell you now that I believe, on the other hand, that there is something ennobling about marriage and constancy, and that those qualities should be encouraged in our constitution. So convinced of their virtue am I that I’m proud to say Belle and I—despite some difference in our ages—intend to marry soon.” He burst out laughing with joy, gesturing gallantly towards Belle.

Belle immediately rose to her feet. She was seen to blush. “Oh, that was meant to be a secret!” she cried, between tears and laughter herself. He put his arms round her and they clung together.

I wished that Kissorian and Sharon could have been present, but we had not seen them for a while. “After this display, we’re bound to win,” Cang Hai whispered to me.

But Beau Stephens now rose, frowning. “Friends, this is a disgraceful spectacle, carefully rehearsed, no doubt, to persuade us to vote with our hearts instead of our heads. If these two rather ageing people are emotionally involved with each other, it is better it should be kept secret than acted out before us in this embarrassing charade.

“The case against marriage is that it is out-of-date and has become merely an opportunity for display and sentiment. Present-day ethics are against the whole idea. After the party’s over, and the gifts mauled about and complained of, before the confetti’s trampled into the mud of the pavement, most couples get divorced, only to indulge in legal wrangles that may continue for some years.

“That’s when we see that marriage is simply about property and lust. It shows no care for any children. It’s dishonest—another bad old custom that must go, if only to impoverish the lawyers.

“You seem fond of quoting, so I’ll give you a quote from Nietzsche, whose Also Sprach Zarathustra I read in my university days. As far as I recall, Nietzsche takes a spiritual view. He says that you should first be mature enough to face the challenge of marriage, so that marriage can enable you both to grow. You should have children who will profit by your spirituality, to become greater than you are. He calls marriage the will of two people to create a someone who is more than those who created it.

“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.

He sighed at such a vulgar display of hope. “You speak like that, yet I can see you’re sick. I’m sorry—but you have merely to gaze from this window to perceive that this is a dead planet, a planet of death, and that we live suspended in a kind of limbo, severed from everything that makes existence meaningful.”