I was a huge science fiction fan growing up in the 60s and early 70s. Asimov, Heinlein, Anderson, Clarke, et al not only entertained me, but helped to shape my view of the world. (That is not true today. When science fiction took its turn toward fantasy writing, I did not go with it; I also read one too many dystopian future stories in the 70s.) I not only read stories and novels written in the 60s and 70s, but also devoured sf written in the 30s, 40s, and 50s.

One of the things that strikes me in retrospect about the science fiction I read is this fact: of the hundreds and hundreds of imaginary futures I read about in stories and novels written in the 40s and 50s and into the early 60s, very very few imagined a society in which men and women were equals. Not too many imagined a society in which traditional sex roles were no more. These writers anticipated a lot of things, but seem to have been taken by surprise by the women's lib movement of the 60s.

Perhaps a lot of us were. Born in 1956, growing up in a rural area, I do not remember any women ministers then; female doctors were the exception; high school principals and school superintendents seemed to be all men. I think now that I assumed that was the way it would be.

Now consider our society. Lots of changes in 50 years in the role of women. Society is not static; things can change radically in a relatively short period of time.

This realization, that unexpectedly radical change can occur rapidly, is part of what gives some of us concern about redefinitions of marriage.