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 on the effects of spaceflight on the divorce laws. This writer will be a Terrie, about five ten, with blue eyes, black hair—turning grey very fast, and the unlikely name of Jose Weinberg Obanion III. Me.
I remember very well the day I was graduated from law school; the day my father gave me his version of the Obanion credo. Always remember you live in a community property state—
That simple phrase has kept three generations of Obanions in the divorce trade. And only I have had cause to regret it.
Basically, I suppose, my troubles began the day the Subversive Party swept the Joe Macs out of Congress and repealed the Alien Restriction Act of 1998. That bit of log-rolling gave the franchise to almost all resident aliens and resulted in a situation virtually destroying the sanctity of divorce as an institution.