New Year New Spouse

[sirhugs]

What about a community where by law, everybody needs to leave their existing spouse January 1, and hook up with a new one for the next year?

Would you be banned from hooking up with prior spouses?
what if there are different numbers of guys or gals?
How does the sorting occur?
What about the wallflowers?
What is the penalty for cheating with your prior year's spouse this year?

 

[ElliottEden]

That would be one heck of a New Years Eve party. Perhaps make it somewhat random? The guys get a ticket on entry then puts a stub into a bowl. After the Auld Lang Syne is sung comes the raffle? The women pick a ticket stub from the bowl - if they pick last years husband they have to put the stub back and pick another. As for wallflowers - if they parented a kid that would be a powerful incentive to continue no? Else your choice would be to leave the community or - see the Singles auction below. Which some might enjoy!

Singles... well. Why not a lottery? Everyone - males and females - buy as many tickets as they want prior to the party? With the money going to maintaining the community club house or even charity. This way there's no guarantee that any of the singles can get picked. But of course everyone knows that after the raffle there'd be some negotiations going on amongst the couples and a single person of the couple's choice. Now if someone who'd been 'married' the year before decided to get raffled off instead - can the prior year's spouse bid for them? Once all that takes place any singles that remain - party game time! The group votes who gets paired with who for the coming year.

Hard to suggest there'd be no cheating in a place such as this. More importantly - children. Who do they go with? The mom? The dad? What about ladies who are preggers at the end of the year? From just a little bit to holy crap get this done so I can get to the hospital you better have an ambulance called like RIGHT NOW... So with that in mind I'd think the idea of cheating is more for the community's amusement - with those caught being part of the party's entertainment?

 

[UsuallyPresent]

Or a community on the edge of evaporating, doing EVERYTHING they can to up the population & diversity. Post-apocalypse, perhaps.

Or under the thumb of one pervy fellow who really enjoys his Prima Nocta rights - and hey, they’re all new marriages, after all, right?

 

[ElliottEden]

Or a community on the edge of evaporating, doing EVERYTHING they can to up the population & diversity. Post-apocalypse, perhaps.

Or under the thumb of one pervy fellow who really enjoys his Prima Nocta rights - and hey, they’re all new marriages, after all, right?

I think you've exposed something there. Why? What is the motivation of all the characters? Seems there are several answers and you've nailed two. Another might be just because. Instead of a law it's a rule in a HOA contract, let's say it's an upscale community. Part of the charm of buying in. And since it's a community comprised of like minded people - everyone should be happy. With of course a dark side which could be fun to pull the curtain back on.

Or a variation of a theme I started in a story about an old fashioned boss. Mix politics with organized crime - he runs his little fiefdom with the velvet glove over the mailed fist; but everyone is happy because there's no crime (ahem!), the streets are clean etc.

Clearly grist for many a mill.

 

[UsuallyPresent]

I think you've exposed something there. Why? What is the motivation of all the characters? Seems there are several answers and you've nailed two. Another might be just because. Instead of a law it's a rule in a HOA contract, let's say it's an upscale community. Part of the charm of buying in. And since it's a community comprised of like minded people - everyone should be happy. With of course a dark side which could be fun to pull the curtain back on.

Or a variation of a theme I started in a story about an old fashioned boss. Mix politics with organized crime - he runs his little fiefdom with the velvet glove over the mailed fist; but everyone is happy because there's no crime (ahem!), the streets are clean etc.

Clearly grist for many a mill.

Perhaps the first wave in the HOA or condo owners are likeminded & happy, but then someone has to move/dies/whatever and an unscrupulous/careless/malicious/libidinous/clueless realtor glosses over the swap condition when they’re replaced?

 

[Zionisacat]

Organised communal insurance scam.

Fine print in the insurance states that the main beneficiary, their current spouse and their ex-spouse of less than a year are covered by the insurance policy.
Three couples figure they only have to pay 2 thirds of their insurance and they'll all be covered, assuming they all rotate their spouses once a year.
At first this was a strictly financial arrangement but as the years have gone by and it's evolved into a tongue in cheek ceremony, which naturally devolved into a tongue in mouth ceremony of the suburban swingers variety.

 

[MikeXIrons]

I could see it as a dystopian future a bit like Handmaid's Tale. Maybe some virus made humanity nearly infertile. Most combinations of man & woman don't produce offspring. So, there needs to be a way to encourage lots of combinations to find compatible couples. So, you've got a year to get pregnant, or you have to try another partner in search of a match... for the sake of the species.

How to choose new partners could be fun. I'm thinking Yankee Swap.

 

[sirhugs]

not that dystopian. If you dislike this year's spouse, better luck next year.

 

[UsuallyPresent]

not that dystopian. If you dislike this year's spouse, better luck next year.

Maybe starts dystopian, ends utopian?

 

[LupusDei]

Yeah, a pairwise mixer on one year period sounds very much like a low intensity "culture preserving" breading program. As contrasted to intense, calculated and closely controlled human farming.

There's lots and lots of fringe issues there (what happens if? debug crap) that collectively may cover significant percentage of the total population at any given time of reassignments, but by the naive designer's intent a year is enough to see it through, from getting to know each other to see the baby born, albeit narrowly.