Group Read 27: The Big Book of Science Fiction

Story #66 of 107: “Wives” by Lisa Tuttle

“Wives” by Little Tuttle was first published in the December 1979 issue of F&SF, but over the years it’s been included in a number of anthologies, including two focusing on women fantasy writers.

“Wives” is a strange story. Set on an alien world where humans, and I assume only males, have mostly wiped out an alien civilization. Some of the aliens survive by being assimilated as wives to human husbands. They wear a skinsuit and makeup to hide their real shape and appear as women and adapt to human ways. Susie wants to rebel and return to the old ways, but the other wives want to survive.

Of course, I assume Tuttle’s story isn’t about aliens and alien worlds but about life on Earth, and how women must hide who they are and let themselves be subjugated by men. But I also thought about parallels to Europeans and Native Americans, and I imagine, any conquered people. This story could be a metaphor for any kind of imperialism — cultural, ethnic, racial, even species. Think about what we’ve done to animals. Can’t you see Susie and her kind in your dogs and cats?

Just how effective is using science fiction to analogize our current problems? Netflix has a new film out, Don’t Look Up that satirizes how society has ignored warnings of climate change. The film is full of great actors but the story has all kinds of problems. The only reason I admire it or recommend it to others is because of its message. Is that why we like “Wives” too? Just because of its message?

I believe we need to judge the story by the story too. So, how well does “Wives” hold up as a story? In that regard, I think very well. Even though it’s absurd, I found its science-fiction setup believable. I felt for Susie, but I understood Doris and Maggie’s positions too. The whole existential problem for Susie’s alien race was realistic within this story.

Rating: ****

James Wallace Harris, 12/29/21

One thought on ““Wives” by Lisa Tuttle”

  1. So, how well does “Wives” hold up as a story? In that regard, I think very well. Even though it’s absurd, I found its science-fiction setup believable. I felt for Susie, but I understood Doris and Maggie’s positions too. The whole existential problem for Susie’s alien race was realistic within this story.

    This story revolved around a peculiar setting reminiscent of a comment made by a feminist on the culture of the homosexual raping among heterosexual males in the prison and rapists’ humiliating reference to the victims as “women”:

    Female were not only a physical phenomenon, but also a social condition.

    By the way, one could also learnt from this tiny work that the existence of autocracy was inseparable from the compromise of most people, who were accordingly not that innocent because of their potential connivance of the evil’s trample on the good.

    Albeit that the core was indeed thought-provoking, I thought it somewhat blemished by the undeveloped plot and world building. It’s not so much a complete story as an undeveloped satire, because there merely existed three main scenes here in want of concrete information on alien’s baffling entanglement with men in the past. The world building was impressive yet unconvincing sans circumstantial details from the perspective of mine.

    https://animae-magnae-prodigus.github.io/blog/2025/02/12/Lisa-Tuttle-Wives.html

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