"See?" she taunted him. "You don't know everything like you think you
do. Marriage," she explained, "was a sort of cooperative agreement
that the ancient people were supposed to have entered into."
"Sure, just like I said," Mark stated with assurance. "Hundreds of
people did it. They got involved in this marriage agreement, and made
war on each other with it."
"What a dope. Marriage was an agreement between just two people. And
that much I might believe. Hundreds is too much."
"It was hundreds," Mark insisted.
"It was not. It was just two. And what's more, it was between a man
and a woman. They lived together with their protobodies and agreed to
cooperate together, and they made children and took care of them until
they grew up."
"Why that's thirty or forty years," Mark exclaimed. "Even the wars
didn't last that long. That's really nonsense. Besides, you can only
make children in the Decanting Centers. And it's all done by
machines."
"Well, maybe it is a little far fetched. But I think it's cute."
"Humph."