Dimension X: Marionettes, Inc. (Ray Bradbury, adapted by George Lefferts)

[james_davis_nicoll]

Marionettes, Inc.

A husband plagued by a suddenly too-affectionate wife learn that his friend, also married to an insufficiently considerate wife, has a solution for his problem: a realistic robot replica able to pass as the husband and every bit - arguably more - in love with his wife as the human original! I can see no way in which this cunning scheme can go horribly wrong!

I was struck by the tone of horror that crept into the protagonist's voice when he asked if his pal was divorced. If divorce had been an acceptable option, nobody would have been buying robot replicas to distract their spouses.

Comments

[tceisele.livejournal.com]

I've noticed that about stories from before the 1970s, too, particularly murder mysteries. They are full of people coming up with creative ways to dispose of their spouses (generally in ways that can be chalked up to "accident" or "natural causes") rather than just divorcing them. It makes me wonder whether public acceptance of divorce just might be saving a significant number of lives.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

As I recall from my childhood, spouse murder was seen as a Thing in Brazil before they started allowing divorces in 1977.

[doc-lemming.livejournal.com]

Even today, I know (generally older) people who stay in suboptimal relationships rather than get a divorce.

Sometimes it's religious in nature and Divorce Is Wrong, even if it's allowed. Sometimes it's because they already have a divorce and don't want the stigma of two-time loser.

I suppose there are still couples Staying Together For The Children, and I suppose to a sufficiently twisted mind, "Your father died in a threshing machine accident" is better for the children than "I divorced that bat rastard." But I don't know of anyone like that. (I know only embezzlers, arsonists and attempted murderers; pretty much by definition, if they were successful, I don't know them.)

John

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

A study from 2000:

http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/econ/Durlauf/networkweb1/temp/Divorceweb.html

They found what looks like a statistically significant decline in female suicides, and probably in husbands murdering their wives, though there were possible confounding factors in the second case.

Data on wives murdering their husbands wasn't good enough to establish any effect there; the rate actually increased around the time no-fault divorce became common, but the time lag seemed to be in the wrong direction.