Sia – One-Eleven Books2

Men and Women Try Living Apart

Sia

The Sia people had suffered a great tragedy, even though they had headed the words of Mother of the People. The Ti’amoni had caused all the children to die because he objected to the increase of his people. After this another misfortune befell the people. All the men and women quarreled with one another incessantly. The men would be hunting all day, but when they came home the women would say they did nothing and they would argue. They each accused each other of wanting to be with one another all the time and with other women or men. Finally, they said they could live apart from each other for a couple of months. Then the other side would argue back that they could live without the other sex for longer. It was finally decided that men and women should live apart. The men went off on their side of the pueblo and the women stayed on theirs.

Nobody really missed anything at the first. They were somewhat relieved to be away from the other sex. After a time, they each came to miss each other, but the men wouldn’t readily admit it. The women finally asked Ti’Amoni if they could be reunited with the men and it happened after four and a half years.

Observations

This sounds like pretty standard stuff to me, but I guess they did take it too far.

Themes

I’ve been married before and I know the feeling these women had. They wanted to live away from their men. Sometimes, it’s a relief. Honestly, if it’s that much of a relief to be away from your spouse, maybe things should end. These women were at a point where they were exhausted in dealing with the men. Maybe they really were being lazy as all get out, or maybe they were actually doing something and Ti’amoni just sent hard feelings to them all. That would certainly slow down population growth if that was what he was concerned about.

Seriously, I get these women. I get them being relieve in being away from the men. When I was married and I came back to the states alone ahead of my husband, I was relieved not to be around him. It was relaxing. He had not been helping me with packing. I had been really stressed and he had been annoying me like crazy, so the fact that he was nowhere near me was like a breath of fresh air. I missed him later, because I still liked him at that point, but for a while, I had myself a nice time of not being around him.

It can be a huge relief to be away from someone who taxes you mentally, whether it’s your spouse or not. Maybe it’s a co-worker. Maybe it’s a neighbor. Maybe it’s a parent. Whoever it is, if you can get away, it feels great.

Notice, the women were the ones who caved first in this story. The women were the ones who wanted the men back first. That’s not saying the women were weaker than the men, who acted like they didn’t need the women. The women were the ones who had the sense enough to put everything to rights first and that’s usually the way things go, unfortunately. If everyone had enough sense, no matter what their sex was, to do the right thing, we wouldn’t have nearly as many problems as we have today, but people still tend to cause stereotypical problems because of their perceived gender role–men are stubborn and prideful and women nag and have more sense.