Study Session

"Patriliny," she said.

"What's that?" the man sitting near her asked.

"A society that traces lineage through male lines."

The man looked confused. "That's an odd way to do things. Why should only the male lineage get counted?"

She shrugged. "It's how it was done a five hundred years ago. According to this article, descent through male lines was considered normal and women had barely any say in government or their lives. It says here that some people even believed that the only proper relationships were between someone with male secondary sex characteristics and someone with female secondary sex characteristics! Can you believe it?"

"Wow. That's so weird! Didn't they know how gender worked back then?"

She scoffed. "Oh, come on! They may have had the internet, but they still thought skin color had something to do with your intrinsic value as a person! Barbaric!"

"Yeah, definitely," said the man. "Why were you reading about that, anyway?"

"I was looking up stuff for history class. We've started the twenty-first century."

"Oof. Not my favorite time period. The nineteen-hundreds, though, now that was an interesting century! Have you ever listened to Prince?"

"Who?"

"Oh, honey, you are in for a treat! I'll have to play you some classical from then--" He was interrupted by the sound of a baby crying. The man sighed. "The Sprog calls!" he said and got up to see to the baby.

"Don't call your kid a sprog!" she shouted after him.

"Yes, love," he yelled back. "Whatever you say, love!"

She smiled, shook her head, and went back to her studies.