The Coming Race - Edward Bulwer, Lord Lytton (free ereaders txt) 📗

Gy-ei (the females), twenty
for the Ana (the males). These children are formed into bands
and sections under their own chiefs, each following the
pursuits in which he is most pleased, or for which he feels
himself most fitted. Some take to handicrafts, some to
agriculture, some to household work, and some to the only
services of danger to which the population is exposed; for the
sole perils that threaten this tribe are, first, from those
occasional convulsions within the earth, to foresee and guard
against which tasks their utmost ingenuity- irruptions of fire
and water, the storms of subterranean winds and escaping gases.
At the borders of the domain, and at all places where such
peril might be apprehended, vigilant inspectors are stationed
with telegraphic communications to the hall in which chosen
sages take it by turns to hold perpetual sittings. These
inspectors are always selected from the elder boys approaching
the age of puberty, and on the principle that at that age
observation is more acute and the physical forces more alert
than at any other. The second service of danger, less grave,
40is in the destruction of all creatures hostile to the life, or
the culture, or even the comfort, of the Ana. Of these the
most formidable are the vast reptiles, of some of which
antediluvian relics are preserved in our museums, and certain
gigantic winged creatures, half bird, half reptile. These,
together with lesser wild animals, corresponding to our tigers
or venomous serpents, it is left to the younger children to
hunt and destroy; because, according to the Ana, here
ruthlessness is wanted, and the younger the child the more
ruthlessly he will destroy. There is another class of animals
in the destruction of which discrimination is to be used, and
against which children of intermediate age are appointed-
animals that do not threaten the life of man, but ravage the
produce of his labour, varieties of the elk and deer species,
and a smaller creature much akin to our rabbit, though
infinitely more destructive to crops, and much more cunning in
its mode of depredation. It is the first object of these
appointed infants, to tame the more intelligent of such animals
into respect for enclosures signalised by conspicuous
landmarks, as dogs are taught to respect a larder, or even to
guard the master's property. It is only where such creatures
are found untamable to this extent that they are destroyed.
Life is never taken away for food or for sport, and never
spared where untamably inimical to the Ana. Concomitantly with
these bodily services and tasks, the mental education of the
children goes on till boyhood ceases. It is the general custom,
then, to pass though a course of instruction at the College of
Sages, in which, besides more general studies, the pupil receives
special lessons in such vocation or direction of intellect as he
himself selects. Some, however, prefer to pass this period of
probation in travel, or to emigrate, or to settle down at once
into rural or commercial pursuits. No force is put upon
individual inclination.

41
Chapter X.


The word Ana (pronounced broadly 'Arna') corresponds with our
plural 'men;' An (pronounced 'Arn'), the singular, with 'man.'
The word for woman is Gy (pronounced hard, as in Guy); it forms
itself into Gy-ei for the plural, but the G becomes soft in the
plural like Jy-ei. They have a proverb to the effect that this
difference in pronunciation is symbolical, for that the female
sex is soft in the concrete, but hard to deal with in the
individual. The Gy-ei are in the fullest enjoyment of all the
rights of equality with males, for which certain philosophers
above ground contend.

In childhood they perform the offices of work and labour
impartially with the boys, and, indeed, in the earlier age
appropriated to the destruction of animals irreclaimably
hostile, the girls are frequently preferred, as being by
constitution more ruthless under the influence of fear or hate.
In the interval between infancy and the marriageable age
familiar intercourse between the sexes is suspended. At the
marriageable age it is renewed, never with worse consequences
than those which attend upon marriage. All arts and vocations
allotted to the one sex are open to the other, and the Gy-ei
arrogate to themselves a superiority in all those abstruse and
mystical branches of reasoning, for which they say the Ana are
unfitted by a duller sobriety of understanding, or the routine
of their matter-of-fact occupations, just as young ladies in our
own world constitute themselves authorities in the subtlest
points of theological doctrine, for which few men, actively
engaged in worldly business have sufficient learning or
refinement of intellect. Whether owing to early training in
gymnastic exercises, or to their constitutional organisation,
the Gy-ei are usually superior to the Ana in physical strength
(an important element in the consideration and maintenance of
female rights). They attain to loftier stature, and amid their
42rounder proportions are imbedded sinews and muscles as hardy as
those of the other sex. Indeed they assert that, according to
the original laws of nature, females were intended to be larger
than males, and maintain this dogma by reference to the earliest
formations of life in insects, and in the most ancient family of
the vertebrata- viz., fishes- in both of which the females are
generally large enough to make a meal of their consorts if they
so desire. Above all, the Gy-ei have a readier and more
concentred power over that mysterious fluid or agency which
contains the element of destruction, with a larger portion of
that sagacity which comprehends dissimulation. Thus they cannot
only defend themselves against all aggressions from the males,
but could, at any moment when he least expected his danger,
terminate the existence of an offending spouse. To the credit
of the Gy-ei no instance of their abuse of this awful
superiority in the art of destruction is on record for several
ages. The last that occurred in the community I speak of
appears (according to their chronology) to have been about two
thousand years ago. A Gy, then, in a fit of jealousy, slew her
husband; and this abominable act inspired such terror among the
males that they emigrated in a body and left all the Gy-ei to
themselves. The history runs that the widowed Gy-ei, thus
reduced to despair, fell upon the murderess when in her sleep
(and therefore unarmed), and killed her, and then entered into a
solemn obligation amongst themselves to abrogate forever the
exercise of their extreme conjugal powers, and to inculcate the
same obligation for ever and ever on their female children. By
this conciliatory process, a deputation despatched to the
fugitive consorts succeeded in persuading many to return, but
those who did return were mostly the elder ones. The younger,
either from too craven a doubt of their consorts, or too high an
estimate of their own merits, rejected all overtures, and,
remaining in other communities, were caught up there by other
mates, with whom perhaps they were no better off. But the loss
43of so large a portion of the male youth operated as a salutary
warning on the Gy-ei, and confirmed them in the pious resolution
to which they pledged themselves. Indeed it is now popularly
considered that, by long hereditary disuse, the Gy-ei have lost
both the aggressive and defensive superiority over the Ana which
they once possessed, just as in the inferior animals above the
earth many peculiarities in their original formation, intended
by nature for their protection, gradually fade or become
inoperative when not needed under altered circumstances. I
should be sorry, however, for any An who induced a Gy to make
the experiment whether he or she were the stronger.

>From the incident I have narrated, the Ana date certain
alterations in the marriage customs, tending, perhaps, somewhat
to the advantage of the male. They now bind themselves in
wedlock only for three years; at the end of each third year
either male or female can divorce the other and is free to
marry again. At the end of ten years the An has the privilege

of taking a second wife, allowing the first to retire if she so
please. These regulations are for the most part a dead letter;
divorces and polygamy are extremely rare, and the marriage
state now seems singularly happy and serene among this
astonishing people;- the Gy-ei, notwithstanding their boastful
superiority in physical strength and intellectual abilities,
being much curbed into gentle manners by the dread of
separation or of a second wife, and the Ana being very much the
creatures of custom, and not, except under great aggravation,
likely to exchange for hazardous novelties faces and manners to
which they are reconciled by habit. But there is one privilege
the Gy-ei carefully retain, and the desire for which perhaps
forms the secret motive of most lady asserters of woman rights
above ground. They claim the privilege, here usurped by men,
of proclaiming their love and urging their suit; in other
words, of being the wooing party rather than the wooed. Such a
44phenomenon as an old maid does not exist among the Gy-ei.
Indeed it is very seldom that a Gy does not secure any An upon
whom she sets her heart, if his affections be not strongly
engaged elsewhere. However coy, reluctant, and prudish, the
male she courts may prove at first, yet her perseverance, her
ardour, her persuasive powers, her command over the mystic
agencies of vril, are pretty sure to run down his neck into
what we call "the fatal noose." Their argument for the reversal
of that relationship of the sexes which the blind tyranny of
man has established on the surface of the earth, appears
cogent, and is advanced with a frankness which might well be
commended to impartial consideration. They say, that of the
two the female is by nature of a more loving disposition than
the male- that love occupies a larger space in her thoughts,
and is more essential to her happiness, and that therefore she
ought to be the wooing party; that otherwise the male is a shy
and dubitant creature- that he has often a selfish predilection
for the single state- that he often pretends to misunderstand
tender glances and delicate hints- that, in short, he must be
resolutely pursued and captured. They add, moreover, that
unless the Gy can secure the An of her choice, and one whom she
would not select out of the whole world becomes her mate, she
is not only less happy than she otherwise would be, but she is
not so good a being, that her qualities of heart are not
sufficiently developed; whereas the An is a creature that less
lastingly concentrates his affections on one object; that if he
cannot get the Gy whom he prefers he easily reconciles himself
to another Gy; and, finally, that at the worst, if he is loved
and taken care of, it is less necessary to the welfare of his
existence that he should love as well as be loved; he grows
contented with his creature comforts, and the many occupations
of thought which he creates for himself.

Whatever may be said as to this reasoning, the system works
well for the male; for being thus sure that he is truly and
ardently loved, and that the more coy and reluctant he shows
45himself, the more determination to secure him increases, he
generally contrives to make his consent dependent on such
conditions as he thinks the best calculated to insure, if not a
blissful, at least a peaceful life. Each individual An has his
own hobbies, his own ways, his own predilections, and, whatever
they may be, he demands a promise of full and unrestrained
concession to them. This, in the pursuit of her object, the Gy
readily promises; and as the characteristic of this
extraordinary