You know, if I look at it in an anthropology of the early frontier colonies way, it'd suggest a cultural norm of young men having relationships with other young men, and then taking partnership with women for reproductive purposes - but it's Earth, and I already know that planet has weird taboos around same-sex relationships. [And someone like SecUnit or Bastion probably wouldn't be allowed to marry at all. She shakes her head.] It would have been awful, taken literally, especially as they take contract for life! What if you weren't sexually compatible at all?

[Ari's very judgemental - as if Tradeliners don't have their own sense of ritual and taboo that seems equally strange to outsiders. But she's also relazed, and speaking freely, not trying to hold back her intellectual engagement with the topic.]

Your Houses - what are they? Companies, or large family clan groups?