Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 18, 1928 — page 70: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

868 Alice; that was plain to be seen. They sat close to her. Alice was regarding her with a blue-eyed gaze of quite obvious ad- miration. Dolores moved over on the low couch; her hand plucked at the hem of Sonya’s smock as it lay just above her knees, and touched the smooth white metal band that encircled her leg. “Sonya, what is that? Just for orna- ment? It’s very pretty.” “No,” she said. ‘“ Not altogether for ornament. Every woman wears one—”’ She brushed her fingers across it; her smile was quizzical. “It is, in fact—well, it had become almost a symbol of what we girls are striving for. The virgins’ band. You see, it is quite unmarked; no man’s name is engraved there—I’ll explain in a mo- ment. “Our king, with twenty of his aged counsellors—my Uncle Ren is one of them —trule the nation. All old men. They make no new laws; the old laws are good enough for them. The guards—you would call them police—are all the army we have. “They are all men—young, sturdy fel- lows who have no thought but to do what they are told. Which is right, of course. Tt is the laws which are wrong, inhuman. They are very old laws; they have come now to be customs, traditions, handed down from father to son.” Her tone was suddenly bitter. She ges- tured with a slim expressive hand. “I must talk more calmly. These things against which we now have come to open rebellion, were doubtless necessary at the beginning. The laws were made by men who knew no better. “ The difficulty is in the sex of our chil- dren. Out of three births, two on the average are females, only one is male. We have, therefore, twice as many women as men. Or at least, there would be twice as many, if— She checked herself again. “Thus we have—I think my uncle said that on your earth it was termed polygamy. A man may marry more than one woman.” Dolores said impulsively: ‘“‘ Oh, I would not like that! It used to be a custom in many parts of our earth, but now only among savage races.” “We girls—of this generation—do not ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. like it either,” said Sonya. ‘ But that is a thing comparatively unimportant. A man sometimes loves his first wife too much to take another. We can all hope for a man like that.” Her voice turned very grave. ‘“ What we are rebelling against is far worse. Often our girl children—if they seemed not des- tined to be beautiful—are killed. The father does not wish the expense of too many girls. ‘Girls or women are never allowed to work. They must only strive to be beau- tiful. And when they have at last reached the proper age, to get rid of them by mar- riage, the father must pay a large tax to the state. “And so—some men kill their girl-chil- dren. It is legally a crime—not done open- ly—we find them sometimes, little white bodies washed up on the shore of the Warm Sea. And the father is tearful that his child wandered away and was drowned. But the mother knows! The law knows, too, but nothing is done about it.” “The mother knows!” Alice echoed. “And a woman continues to live with her husband knowing that?” Sonya shrugged. “It is the custom. For generations women have been bred to ex- pect it. Woman’s allotted portion—to live, to suffer, and to die! Perhaps no woman could love her husband after that. But love in marriage is a vague and elusive thing. I think, sometimes, it only exists in our dreams, our dreams of what might be—but never will be.” She shook herself slightly. ‘“ But all men are not like that, of course. And a girl can always hope she will find one who is different. Some of us would not marry if we could help it, but the law says we must. ‘“ At the age of twenty a girl must choose one of the men who has recorded his name as desiring her. Any man is legally eligible to do that. He may have no wife as yet; or he may have one wife, or several. If he has the necessary money for the tax— and deposits it with the government, his name is recorded. “You see—” She was cynical now. “The government needs the money! And Gomichooks (E@)