Alfred Coppel 28 min read

A Terran divorce lawyer named Jose Weinberg Obanion III learns the perils of a community-property state after aliens win the vote.

Alfred Coppel's 1954 story spins wry legal social SF from the collision of spaceflight, alien enfranchisement, and marriage law, narrated by a rueful attorney. Funny, sharp golden-age satire. Read it for a clever comic tale about how the future might upend the oldest institutions, and keep the lawyers busy.

In its time

Published in 1954, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

28 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).