"Your...wife?" Setsuko asked. "Is that how they arrange marriages, where you come from, either to a man or a woman? Do they determine such matches based on compatibility?" And how do two women reproduce? she wanted to know, but didn't think it proper to ask.

"In my country," she said, "relationships between women are common, but in the end they're always married off to men. A bit silly, I find, especially if those two originally got along so well..."