laramie

InkSpell: by Cornelia Funke, sequel to Inkheart. The story involves many of the same characters from the first book, but carries the story into the book-world from which Dustfinger had been called into our world, (or, Reality0 of the story), and in which Meggie's mother had been lost. Lots of danger and adventure, magic and magical characters. What I like best about this series are the characters, who I find believable and sympathetic - from Fire worker, to crotchety book-hoarder aunt, to girl-becoming-woman.

Victory of Eagles: by Naomi Novik, the latest Temeraire book. It had been so long since reading the previous book that I'd forgotten Laurence's predicament! The relationship between Laurence and Temeraire continues as the big draw for me in this series, but I also enjoyed the introduction of the new, nerdy dragon character and the growing role of Iskertia, the fire-breather. The play-by-play of battles in the Napoleanic war tends to lose my interest.

Currently reading: Saturn's Children by Charles Stross. I didn't anticipate being able to relate so well to non-human characters in a future in which not only humans, but organic life in toto is kaput.

Every human culture has some form of marriage. They are not all the same. We even have different words for different kinds of marriage: polygamy, polyandry, monogamy (monoandry?).

Most forms of marriage probably evolved as a way of formalizing the relationships that brought children into the world and into the tribe, but, in at least some cultures, the primary relationship for child-care and rearing is mother & mother's brother. Some cultures have been matriarchal and matrilineal and the father's role minimal.

This is all to say that 'marriage' is a term wider in meaning than any one culture's version of it, and Orson Scott Card is mistaken in thinking that the definition used by his own subculture is a definition that must apply to everyone. Obviously, it doesn't.

I have nothing against heterosexual monogamy. I might like to practice it someday (under the right circumstances; I can see it as a form of hell, with an incompatible partner.) I'm sure it can feel very special and sacred to those who do practice it, but it is a specialized form of marriage, and not the only form of marriage, and I wish its proponents would more widely recognize that, because their failure to do so is giving the whole institution a bad rep.