"Ugh, so you're still married to him?" Niabheara looked pained, but also sort of impressed. "What sort of argument? He forsook you. Doesn't that count? You can't very well be married to someone who isn't there."

"No, no, he would have to not have consummated the marriage, which he did," Miranda replied. "Or slept with another woman, which he might have, but I don't know." She sighed. "It isn't very easy. He could have committed incest. They'd let me annul it for that. And no," she said. "I'm not still married. He had it annulled."

She breathed out. "Good. At least you don't have to go back to him." She frowned. "Marcello can divorce me if I forsake him, since it really wouldn't work the other way around. Or if I commit a felony. Or if I beat him, but only if I leave welts."

Miranda laughed. "So you have to be very careful when you beat him," she teased. "That sounds fair. It just...I think that's how it should be at home, and people should be more forgiving of young people making mistakes."

"I just don't understand why it's so different," she said. "Why it's so . . . absolute. You can't make laws against nature and expect people to keep to them. It's like making laws about when people can sleep."

"But they think it is nature," Miranda replied. "They think it's going against nature to do things any other way but the ones they dictate. "

Niabheara raised an eyebrow. "Is this an actual 'they'? As in, people who are currently alive, and set forth laws? Or is this one of those ancient societal 'theys' who set out the rules ages and ages ago and can't be argued with?"

"A little bit of both," Miranda admitted. "That is, these rules were fixed long before anyone alive now had a say in it, but people...a lot of people now still agree with it."

Niabheara slumped a little. "Those are the worst theys," she said. "The other kind can be dealt with a little more easily. If they make a law that no one can reasonably keep, people o'erthrow them. Or else ignore the law, which is far more common."

"Most people can reasonably keep it," Miranda replied. "And it's not...it's not as if there's no logic to it. It's just a very constrained logic, is all. So people don't really question it, and even if they think it's a bit silly or old-fashioned they still think there's some good behind it."