Chapter 18
Somebody's getting married!
When: Day 224
Where: The Library
And so the provisional constitution was written up and signed, with an option to renew every year for the first ten years, then every ten years after that. Life went on as it had only made clear what we were already basically doing, no one's behavior had to change. But at least I could breathe a sigh of relief that we had accomplished something 'intangible' like agreeing how we would govern ourselves. Yes, it was still rather loose compared to the stacks of lawbooks you would find on Earth but everyone had agreed having one simple law was better than dozens and dozens of obscure ones. As we were still basically stuck inside we continued studying magic, and planning out what we would do when the snow melted. I was having a conversation with some people that wanted to start growing things about what to grow.
"Coffee beans I get, even if we don't get sleepy here people like drinking it," I told the group. "But cocoa beans not so much. We can't make milk chocolate without milk!"
"Can't make chocolate milk either," remarked one. I glared at him, but he put on an innocent expression. "What, it's true isn't it?"
"Technically," I agreed. "But really there's going to be a lot of things we can't make. Cakes take eggs. I guess we can make pie crust with vegetable fats rather than butter or lard, once someone figures out how to make vegetable shortening. No cheese or other milk products like yogurt."
"Unless..." said Madeleine, staring off into the distance. "Hey Janet?"
"Yes?" She appeared next to us.
"Once we start growing things can certain foods be added to the warehouse as raw materials? Maybe in a refrigerated section? We'll need milk and eggs to start. That could be considered a resource, right? Just like raw metals or paper. We'll want to turn them into other things by baking."
"I don't see why not," she agreed. "But I would have to clear it with both Good and Bad places. I expect as food ingredients are neither good or bad both sides should agree fairly quickly."
"What if you didn't have to do that?" I asked.
"Then I can't add them?" she asked, looking confused.
"What I'm saying is, those dogs are still around for instance. But they're just the souls of dogs, just like we're the souls of people. Bring up some souls of cows and chickens, and let us harvest our own eggs and milk. Now we won't be able to have chicken wings, or burgers for that matter because killing a chicken or a cow will just make it vanish I assume."
"That's correct. It would return the next day," she confirmed, "same as you."
"So no ham and cheese sandwiches, but at least we could have scrambled eggs in the morning. We would have to build some barns to keep them in over the winter, but I don't see that being a problem."
"Wouldn't need to grow grain to feed them either," Madeleine mused. "Just keep them warm."
"Right. So what about it? Can you get us chickens and such? Maybe goats if people want goat milk?"
"Sure, I don't have to ask about animals, you would have to do any work gathering eggs or milk yourself. So that's neutral."
"Okay, great. So put down cocoa beans on the list."
"You got it, boss!"
"I hope you're prepared to work for those," Janet said with a giggle. "You don't know what you're getting yourself into."
Twenty minutes later we realized she was right, as we crowded around a book detailing how to make chocolate. It wasn't that any one step was difficult, it was that each "pod" contained only a few "beans" that could become cococa powder and thus become chocolate. At least on any kind of scale people were used to. The chocolate industry must be huge, to support all of Earth if you have to go through all this, even at an industrial scale, to make the amount of chocolate bars I see in stores. Sheesh. "Well, we'll plant some anyway, someone is going to want chocolate badly enough to do all this," I told them. "Maybe we can find some magic to make it easier..." Grinding things without modern equipment would take forever! We really need to invent ways of generating electricity safely. Making solar panels, though we have step by step instructions, still takes machinery we don't possess.
With the farm plan drawn up I figured I would go back to studying magic but two people, a man and a woman that were holding hands came up to me.
"Denice?" the woman asked. "Do you have a minute?"
"Sure, what's up?"
"I'm Tamara, this is Umar, we want to get married."
"Really? That's great news, congratulations! I'm happy to officiate if that's what you need."
"We would love that, but that's not why we're here," Umar told me.
I looked between the two, and they didn't seem as, well, giddy with happiness as one might expect at the prospect of marriage. "What's the problem?"
"The problem," said Tamara, "is that we're both still married, technically. To other people. That aren't here in Midveil yet."
"Ah." I was starting to see the problem.
"So we need to know if our getting married would cause harm," Umar went on. "To our spouses, when they show up. I mean, I got married 'till death do us part' but now it seems death will one day bring us back together."
"But that could be in a hundred years," Tamara put in. "Especially at the speed houses are going up. Though of course we're getting better at it, and maybe more people will accelerate the process but still. There's a lot of souls waiting to come here, right?"
"There are," I agreed. "This is a problem. Do you forgo happiness in the short term, on the off chance you'll see your previous partner again? I mean, you could be in Good Place by the time they get here, or they could go there without ever setting foot here. To say nothing of them moving on and maybe finding someone else, and now they come face to face with you again and think, uh oh what have I done?"
"Exactly," Umar agreed. "What are we to do?"
"Yes, what is the moral thing here?" Tamara pleaded. "You have to tell us, Denice. I don't want to be punished later, by my husband if and when he comes here because my marrying Umar did him harm."
"Wait a minute, I'm no kind of moral authority," I protested, hands out. "You can't ask me things like that!"
"You're our leader," Umar told me. "That's also the closest thing we have to a spiritual leader too. Michael wouldn't give us an answer, only that morality was largely based on the time period you lived in and what other people thought about things at the time."
I scratched my head. "Then the thing to do would be to ask around, see what everyone else thinks?"
"You would do that for us?"
"I meant you should do it!"
"Oh no, we can't do it," Tamara protested. "If anyone knew we were asking for ourselves their answer might change based on how they viewed us."
"That's… not unreasonable," I decided, thinking about it for a second. Personal bias may influence a question like that. If they like the pairing or the people they would be more inclined to give a favorable answer. That's why I always thought it a bit odd for a jury to see the person they were passing judgment on. Even the judge shouldn't see the person until after the trial is over, to prevent just such bias. The law is the law, a judge shouldn't hand out a harsher sentence for someone they see as less attractive or because they're a certain race. You hire a musician for a band based on how they sound playing the instrument not by how they look. Right? Same thing here. Even job interviews should be held without actually seeing the person, but of course no one does that. Because the world of the living is horrible and messed up. We have to do better here in Midveil. "I can ask around."
"Thank you!" they both cried, clearly relieved.
So I walked around and asked people what they thought. I didn't name any names that would defeat the whole purpose, but I did give them the gist of the situation. Should we allow marriage here between people already married to others? Many said they wanted to think about it, but a few people had some good insights.
"Are we going to start labeling everything like we did on Earth?" Stefan asked. "I mean look at me. I'm supposedly an old man. I'm pretty sure I died in my eighties with a wife, kids, and even grand-kids. But I've always seen myself as just a boy that never grew up. And when I came here, the world itself seemed to agree with me. Should I be labeled as one thing or another? Isn't that what you want to do with these two people? Give them a label? If they want to be exclusive let them, they don't need a piece a paper saying that. It's not like they'll get tax breaks or anything for being married. And they won't be having kids of their own, so what does it matter?"
"I think it matters to them," I explained. "Marriage means something, it's more than just a party you throw for your friends and oh by the way we're promising to be together."
"Does it?" he asked. "They can make that promise to each other without me labeling them 'married' right? In fact why is it any of my business if they want to be exclusive, or not?"
"To throw away all our traditions just because we're dead seems wrong though. Marriage was practiced around the whole world."
"Practiced, but can anyone claim they had mastered it?"
I scowled down at him. "I'm being serious here."
"It's just an odd term, I get what you're saying. Well, I'm not morally opposed to the term whatever it means here. I guess it depends on their partners, if and when they ever show up. Those are the people going to make the punishment according to the One Law, right? If they think those people are vindictive and will make a stink, maybe reconsider. Or absent the spouse draw up divorce papers, give them thirty days to appear and sign, and when they don't it's made official in their absence. Then if they do show up they can just be presented with the 'legal' paperwork and told they were officially divorced."
"I guess that's one option. Thanks, Stefan."
"Sure thing."
"What is marriage anyway?" Siew Yan asked.
"Don't give me that, they must have marriage in Singapore," I told her.
"But we're not in Singapore anymore, we're in Midveil. How are we defining marriage here? Remember, you're talking about a long, long time to be married. On Earth there was always an understanding, however subconsciously that eventually the marriage would end. Not so much here. I think we're going to have to define what marriage is for us. Maybe have each couple define it for themselves."
"So, wait, if one person says they're married but leaves it open to be married to someone else and the other doesn't agree..."
"Then maybe these people shouldn't be getting married in the first place?"
"So what you're saying is marriage isn't one thing or the other here? That it's however the couple defines it? So being married could mean one thing to one couple but something completely different to another?"Doesn't that sort of make it meaningless to tell people you're married? It could mean anything. That goes back to Stefan's labeling thing though. He said why label things at all, she's saying let the label remain but let it mean different things. It really only has meaning to those people who want the label in the first place. No one should care how someone else's marriage is structured. If we're moving past how things were done on Earth, anyway.
"Right. I would say the best wedding ceremony would be for both people to present their contract of marriage to the other person. They read it over. They make any changes they deem necessary and sign it, handing it back. The other person then reads over the changes and if they agree, they sign it. Boom, the couple is married. They can still kiss, if they want."
"That would be the most boring wedding ceremony ever!"
"Would it?" she asked with a laugh. "I think it would be a real nail biter. Are they going to go through with it? Did he put in a paragraph about having someone on the side and she's going to stalk off leaving him at the alter? Maybe she wants him to stop looking like a fox person or specifies the number of kids they're going to adopt. He could run away screaming."
I snorted. "I guess. Seems unbalanced if one party was a lawyer in life though."
"No rule that says you have to write it alone."
"Humm. It would be easier to show harm done if both people agree what the marriage is to look like beforehand. I guess I wouldn't even have to codify it as law, as it's whatever both people want anyway. I might have someone write up a template to get them started, maybe build in a renewal period of five years, where both can make changes to the 'contract,' and decide if they are still married or not."
She nodded. "Giving people an easy out is going to be paramount here. Even I still have trouble grasping that I'm going to exist like this forever. Well, I mean not like this," she indicated herself. "I hear looking like an elf is going to be big next year so I might try that on for size."
"Very funny," I told her dryly. Never should have brought that up. Should have just waited until everything was settled, and then just causally gone and grown a forest somewhere I could elf out in for a little while. I mean is that so much to ask?
She grinned at me. "But even if I got crushed by a building falling over I would be fine the next day. I'm permanent in a way I've never been before. Will my ideas about how I should live be permanent? I might fall in and out of love with a dozen people in the next thousand years. Why should I limit myself here if I don't have to? Anyone I partner with should understand that I probably won't be in love with them forever, nor would I expect them to be in love with me forever. But it might be nice to be married, or not, whatever that means for me at the time. As far as causing harm if we break up… that's why you set the expectation at the beginning, so they can't say they didn't know it was coming."
"No, I hear you," I told her. "You make some good points. Thanks." Right, ugh, what if one person isn't in love with the other anymore? Wants to leave? Emotional harm for the one still in love, and easily proved by magic. 'Does person such and such still love person other person? Yes/No.' Done. Proven harm. I mean if they're a jerk about it. But even on Earth wasn't that the case? Did a person really think at nineteen we'll say that they would love the fifty year old their partner became? Sure there were the lucky ones that did, maybe even loved them more. But getting out of a bad marriage was still costly both in terms of resources, emotions, time. We need to do better here.
So I switched tactics, asking people what they thought of defining marriage differently here in Midveil. Naturally there were some that said it had to be the same for everybody, or it was meaningless. To them I argued "But say we do define it completely. Given how many different cultures there were on Earth and people's ideas now, there's a good chance it'll look nothing like how you want it to look. Isn't it better to have flexibility so you can marry how you want to instead of how I want you to?" I was also sure to remind them that in the future people from all different places and times would be coming here, and it would be impossible to accommodate them all with one set of rules. Most agreed that might be the only way to allow marriage and still be able to call it that. But they didn't look happy about it. I guess there will always be people that want to control how other people think or behave. Well, too bad because this place is going to have to accommodate everybody. And we really do have to set the precedent now, before even more closed minded people come from Bad Place. At least now I'm trying to convince somewhat modern thinkers this is a good idea. Someone from say 3ed century China? I have no idea how flexible someone from that place and time would be. Maybe more flexible than me, I don't know, but that's the point. I have to plan on less, so I'm delighted if it's more.
I gave everyone two days to think it over, meanwhile I found someone that at least had some legal experience and could write up a template those that wanted to get married could use to get started. This could be a bit more 'flowery' than our constitution so it started: Henceforth, let it be known that the undersigned shall consent to marriage before these witnesses, to last _ years until renewal. With love and understanding do they come together, pledging for the time above to observe what marriage means for them, as laid bare in this writ of binding.
You get the idea. I suggested some generic things like not cheating, and to leave space for each person to write in their own stuff. I was going to make a few copies once it was done but Janet stopped me.
"If you want, I can make it like the books here," she explained. "We can create a filing cabinet with documents like this in it, that can be taken out but remain to be taken out again. Of course any copies that come out wouldn't be linked, so they can be filled in separately. That would save you some work, correct? And if you want to change the 'master' copy you can just tell me, and I'll let you (or the person with the highest points obviously) replace this copy with a new one."
"That would actually be great," I told her. "Thanks."
"Sure thing. I'm married, you know."
"Really? I didn't actually know that!"
"To one of the founders, Jason."
"He must be quite a man, I'd love to meet him." I hear about these 'founders' but I still don't know much about them. They must be exceptional individuals, to have convinced the celestials to begin the Midveil project. I wonder how they got picked? Are they enjoying their time in Good Place, and that's why they never come here to see how Midveil is doing?
"Uh… Yes… He's that all right. Yes, what you said, is what he is."
"Okay?" Not convinced? "You're not regretting it or anything, are you?"
"Oh no, nothing like that. The others look down on him, I mean he did die believing a snorkel would allow him to breathe inside a safe-"
"I'm sorry how did-"
"And yes, he was trying to rob a bank, and may still have some off the walls ideas about things-"
"A bank, you said?" Wait, how did a bank robber, or at least one stupid enough to die in the attempt, come to be a 'founder?' Who are these founders anyway? What really happened before we came to Midveil?
"But he saw me as a person, and so we got married!"
"You… you realize that's sort of the minimum standard for that sort of thing."
"I do."
"Well, okay then. As long as you're happy." Because you're going to be stuck with him for a long time.
And so Umar and Tamara agreed to separate, fill out the form to define what they wanted their side of the marriage to look like, and have the first Midveil wedding. With no cake, no music, no fancy clothes, no gifts, and held in the middle of a factory building with the tables and things shoved to one side. I said they could use the library but they wanted to be somewhere made by human hands, not simply wished into existence by Janet, which I respected. We managed to fit everybody that wanted to come inside, and as there were few changes to the contracts on either side (whew) Midveil had our first married couple. They had to renew every 'year' once we figured out how long a year was around here, and agreed if their previous partners showed up they had the option to marry them at once as well. Of course the new arrivals would have to agree to allow the other marriage, but given they might never make it here, or it could be a hundred years from now and these two were broken up long ago, it didn't seem like a pressing concern. They seemed happy, and I was happy for them. On to the next crisis, I guess.
