COMMUNITY PROPERTY
BY ALFRED COPPEL
The first successful non-Terrestrial divorce
case! Fame for Legal Eagle Jose Obanion for his
generalship of a three-sexed, five Venusian
history-shattering precedent! Habits are habits
but—alas!—on Venus they differ....
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, December 1954.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
One of these days an embittered lawyer is going to write a text onthe effects of spaceflight on the divorce laws. This writer will be aTerrie, about five ten, with blue eyes, black hair—turning grey veryfast, and the unlikely name of Jose Weinberg Obanion III. Me.
I remember very well the day I was graduated from law school; the daymy father gave me his version of the Obanion credo. Always rememberyou live in a community property state—
That simple phrase has kept three generations of Obanions in thedivorce trade. And only I have had cause to regret it.
Basically, I suppose, my troubles began the day the Subversive Partyswept the Joe Macs out of Congress and repealed the Alien RestrictionAct of 1998. That bit of log-rolling gave the franchise to almost allresident aliens and resulted in a situation virtually destroying thesanctity of divorce as an institution.
I'm a Joe Mac myself—politically, I mean. Obanions have been votingthe Joe Mac Party Ticket for more than a hundred years. Red is ourcolor. There are even family legends that say an Obanion was with thefirst Joe Mac when he became President of that old unit the Euse of Aay.
We have to rely on legends, unfortunately, because the Joe Mac Partytraditionally fed their rally bonfires with books, and when they wonthe election and took over the Euse of Aay they had a rally to endall rallies and somehow the Government Archives—books, you see, aswell as punch cards and the like—got taken over by some very zealousParty men. The records were always rather incomplete after that. Onlyword of mouth information was available during that first Joe MacAdministration, and that can be sketchy. For example, the party coloris red. All we know is that first Joe Macs had something to do withred. You see how it goes.
What I mean by all this, is that I can see the faults in my own Party.I'm no diehard. Nor am I a bad loser. The Subs won control of Congressby a landslide, so I guess the people wanted that sort of slipshodgovernment. Only they should have been more careful, dammit, when theystarted tampering with the laws.
I'm not antispacegook, either. I have my framed Legal Eagle's Oathright over my desk and I live up to it. And if Congress sees fit tomake any Tmm, Dccck, or Harry a citizen of our great Commonwealth—Iaccount it my duty to see to it that they are not denied the benefitsof our Terrestrial divorce laws.
But sometimes it can be very trying.
The new Sub Administration and their rash repeal of Joe Mac laws hashad the effect of putting reverse English on the Obanion credo.
Always remember you live in a community property state....
That wonderful phrase that encompasses so many great truths—thatringing statement that has made me rich and kept me a bachelor—nowmeans something else. Confusion. Work. Yes, and even spacegookdepravity.
I should go back and pick up the story at the beginning before I gettoo upset.
My name, as I said before, is Jose Obanion. I'm a licensed Legal Eag