Georgina Annabelle Lincoln (bcgal) wrote in neogenesisrpg, @ 2009-07-05 11:05:00 |
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Entry tags: | georgina lincoln |
Eureka!
Who: George and Callum (NPC)
What: Eureka!
When: Sunday afternoon
Location: Back yard
Rating: G
Status: Complete
George was sitting cross-legged on the rug she spread out on the grass, Puddin' and Pie both stretched out, sound asleep, beside her. The book she was reading, a psychology text book that focused specifically on relationships and marriage had copious quantities of yellow post-it notes protruding from every side, small notations on each in scribbled handwriting would have been impossible to decipher for anyone else, George's squiggles and ticks meaning something only to her.
Scattered and stacked around her were an array of other books, along with a plate covered in crumbs that rested on a paper napkin, and a large drink bottle, used because it didn't matter if it was knocked over by either an errant cat or misguided book. She'd learnt that lesson a long time ago when an almost done manuscript she'd been revising had been drowned when the contents of a large jug of iced tea had been dumped across the stack of pages, Puddin' just looking over his shoulder as it had toppled, but quickly departing the scene when George had shreiked and leapt up to try and rescue said manuscript.
She pushed back the long curtain of hair that had swung down next to her face as she turned the page, the crease deeply furrowing her brow now almost a permanent fixture as she ploughed through the information she'd gathered.
Her article on the residual effects of the bombing on the victims and their families had drawn attention, some for what the article had originally been about, and a litte more for the undercurrent she had written into it, primarily about the magnification of the effect on those couples who had been paired through the government's lottery, not married by their own choice, their own free will.
One of the piles of books was on the psychology of marriage, including The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap and The Way We Really Are: Coming To Terms With America's Changing Families, along with The Psychology of Marriage: Basic Issues and Applications.
The one in her lap was closed and she rubbed at her face, pulling her hair back and twisting it around as she distracted herself with it for a moment. Inhaling deeply she pulled the temporary twist of dark hair around and drew her knees up to rest her arms on them, sighing deeply. She was trying to find a way to write what she wanted to and avoid having the censors step in and stop the story, and perhaps even cause trouble for the magazine. The editor had talked to her, his own situation one he's eventually told her of, and was the reason he was wanting her to come to him first on the follow-up she told him she had planned.
"My son, Adam, is twenty four, and his girlfriend is a medical student who picked up a scholarship to study tropical diseases so has been living away for the last eight months. They were planning on getting married before she went but her family couldn't get it together in time, so they decided to wait." His mouth twisted angrily as he continued. "His name was drawn, despite us having gone to the lottery people and told them they were to be married, and applied for the marriage license. They didn't care. The kids were not married so they were in the lottery. She couldn't get back in time and now he's been forced to marry some eighteen year old floozy with more face furniture than a scrap yard and who hasn't the brain of an ant but has the mouth of a wharfie and is a brat who's never been told no in her entire life, and thinks the world owes her a living!" The bitterness in the man's voice was intense and George shook her head.
"A stellar example of the type of person we want parenting our next generation," she murmured, tugging her notebook out and asking him a few more questions. He'd answered openly, and willingly, but at the end of it he glared at her across the desk. "Don't use his name, or mine, or your story'll never see the ink." Arching an eyebrow at him she shook her head. "I'm doubting I'll be using any more names or faces - changing them to protect the innocent and all that," she assured him, that decision having been made once she'd started to talk to people more.
The sound of the sliding door opening drew her attention to the deck and Callum appeared, a parcel in his hands. "This just came for you," he told her as he came down off the deck, holding out the package. "Another book from the feel of it," he added, taking a look at the rug and the books already scattered across it, interspersed by cats and lunch clutter. He crouched down as she opened it, scritching Pie behind his ear only to have his other hand then nudged by Puddin', demanding the same treatment.
"Thanks, sweetheart." George took the parcel and tore it open, another book being revealed. Callum reached out and took the discarded wrapping as his mother read the name of the book. "Ah! Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage," she said, turning the book over in her hands and reading the back cover, then opening to the first chapter. She read the first few paragraphs and let out a cry. "That's it!" she exclaimed, leaving Callum looking a little bemused. She started reading aloud.
George Bernard Shaw described marriage as an institution that brings together two people “under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions. They are required to swear that they will remain in that heightened, abnormal and exhausting condition continuously until death do them part.” Shaw’s comment was amusing when he wrote them at the beginning of the twentieth century, and it still makes us smile today, because it pokes fun at the unrealistic expectations that spring from a dearly held cultural ideal – that marriage should be based on intense, profound love and a couple should maintain their ardour until death do them part. But for thousands of years the joke would have fallen flat.
For most of history it was inconceivable that people would choose their mates on the basis of something as fragile and irrational as love and then focus all their sexual, intimate and altruistic desires on the resulting marriage. In fact, many historians, sociologists and anthropologists used to think romantic loves was a recent Western invention. This is not true. People have always fallen in love, and throughout the ages many couples have loved each other deeply.
But only rarely in history has love been seen as the main reason for getting married. When someone did advocate such a strange belief, it was no laughing matter. Instead it was considered a severe threat to social disorder...