Brion felt his ears reddening, not sure if he was being teased or not. “The same damn way they get made any place else! But it’s not just a reflexive process like a couple of rabbits that happen to meet under the same bush. It’s the woman’s choice to indicate if she is interested in marriage.”

“Is marriage the only thing your women are interested in?”

“Marriage or … anything else. That’s up to the girl. We have a special problem on Anvhar—probably the same thing occurs on every planet where the human race has made a massive adaptation. Not all unions are fertile and there is always a large percentage of miscarriages. A large number of births are conceived by artificial insemination. Which is all right when you can’t have babies normally. But most women have an emotional bias towards having their husband’s children. And there is only one way to find out if this is possible.”

Lea’s eyes widened. “Are you suggesting that your girls see if a man can father children before considering marriage?”

“Of course. Otherwise Anvhar would have been depopulated centuries ago. Therefore the woman does the choosing. If she is interested in a man, she says so. If she is not interested, the man would never think of suggesting anything. It’s a lot different from other planets, but so is our planet Anvhar. It works well for us, which is the only test that applies.”

“Just about the opposite of Earth,” Lea told him, dropping the apple core into a dish and carefully licking the tips of her fingers. “I guess you Anvharians would describe Earth as a planetary hotbed of sexuality. The reverse of your system, and going full blast all the time. There are far too many people there for comfort. Birth control came late and is still being fought—if you can possibly imagine that. There are just too many of the archaic religions still around, as well as crackbrained ideas that have been long entrenched in custom. The world’s overcrowded. Men, women, children, a boiling mob wherever you look. And all of the physically mature ones seem to be involved in the Great Game of Love. The male is always the aggressor. Not physically—at least not often—and women take the most outrageous kinds of flattery for granted. At parties there are always a couple of hot breaths of passion fanning your neck. A girl has to keep her spike heels filed sharp.”

“She has to what?”

“A figure of speech, Brion. Meaning you fight back all the time, if you don’t want to be washed under by the flood.”

“Sounds rather”—Brion weighed the word before he said it, but could find none other suitable—“repellent.”