Norman Arkawy 15 min read

In 2136, the first contested divorce in eighty-three years comes before the Terran High Court, a woman fighting to remain an individual in her own right against a charge that could unmake her.

Norman Arkawy's 1954 story is a sharp dystopian social-SF tale of marriage, law, and identity in a regimented future. Provocative, thoughtful golden-age SF. Read it for a story that turns a divorce trial into high tragedy, as one woman battles a society that would define her away.

In its time

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

Reading it

15 min read (a short story, a single idea, delivered and gone).