"So.. where does sex fit into all this?" asks Ivan plaintively.
"Nowhere," says Maz.
"Nowhere!" exclaims a horrified Ivan.
Maz laughs. "Yes, the haut have sexual relations, but it's purely a social game. They even have long-lasting sexual friendships that could almost qualify as marriages, sometimes. I was about to say there's nothing formalized, except that the etiquette of all the shifting associations is so incredibly complex. I guess the word I want is legalized, rather than formalized, because the rituals are intense. And weird, really weird, sometimes, from what little I've been able to gather of it all. Fortunately, the haut are such racists, they almost never go slumming outside their genome, so you are not likely to encounter those pitfalls personally."
"Oh," says Ivan, a little disappointed. "But... if the haut don't marry and set up their own households, when and how do they leave home?"
"They never do."
"Ow! You mean they live with, like, their mothers, forever?"
"Well, not with their mothers, of course. Their grandparents or great-grandparents. But the youth — that is, anyone under fifty or so — do live as pensioners of their constellation. I wonder if that is at the root of why so many older haut become reclusive. They live apart because they finally can."
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"So.. where does sex fit into all this?" asks Ivan plaintively.
"Nowhere," says Maz.
"Nowhere!" exclaims a horrified Ivan.
Maz laughs. "Yes, the haut have sexual relations, but it's purely a social game. They even have long-lasting sexual friendships that could almost qualify as marriages, sometimes. I was about to say there's nothing formalized, except that the etiquette of all the shifting associations is so incredibly complex. I guess the word I want is legalized, rather than formalized, because the rituals are intense. And weird, really weird, sometimes, from what little I've been able to gather of it all. Fortunately, the haut are such racists, they almost never go slumming outside their genome, so you are not likely to encounter those pitfalls personally."
"Oh," says Ivan, a little disappointed. "But... if the haut don't marry and set up their own households, when and how do they leave home?"
"They never do."
"Ow! You mean they live with, like, their mothers, forever?"
"Well, not with their mothers, of course. Their grandparents or great-grandparents. But the youth — that is, anyone under fifty or so — do live as pensioners of their constellation. I wonder if that is at the root of why so many older haut become reclusive. They live apart because they finally can."