PHOTOGRAPH BYCORBIS

‘OKAY, NOW LET’S HAVE SOME FUN. Let’s talk about sex.

Let’s talk about women. Freud said he didn’t know what women

wanted. I know what women want: a whole lot of people to talk

to. What do they want to talk about? They want to talk about

everything.

‘What do men want? They want a lot of pals, and they wish

people wouldn’t get so mad at them.

‘Why are so many people getting divorced today? It’s because

most of us don’t have extended families anymore. It used to be

that when a man and a woman got married, the bride got a lot

more people to talk to about everything. The groom got a lot

more pals to tell dumb jokes to.

‘A few Americans, but very few, still have extended families.

The Navahos. The Kennedys.

‘But most of us, if we get married nowadays, are just one

more person for the other person. The groom gets one more pal,

but it’s a woman. The woman gets one more person to talk to

about everything, but it’s a man.

‘When a couple has an argument nowadays, they may think

it’s about money or power or sex or how to raise the kids or

whatever. What they’re really saying to each other, though

without realizing it, is this: “You are not enough people!”

‘A husband, a wife and some kids is not a family. It’s a terribly

vulnerable survival unit.

‘I met a man in Nigeria one time, an Ibo who had six hundred

relatives he knew quite well. His wife had just had a baby, the best

possible news in any extended family.

‘They were going to take it to meet all its relatives, Ibos of all ages

and sizes and shapes. It would even meet other babies, cousins not

much older than it was. Everybody who was big enough and steady

enough was going to get to hold it, cuddle it, gurgle to it, and say how

pretty or handsome it was.

‘Wouldn’t you have loved to be that baby?

‘I sure wish I could wave a wand, and give every one of you an

extended family, make you an Ibo or a Navaho – or a Kennedy.

‘Now, you take George and Laura Bush, who imagine themselves as

a brave, clean-cut little couple. They are surrounded by an enormous

extended family, what we should all have – I mean judges, senators,

newspaper editors, lawyers, bankers. They are not alone. That they are

members of an extended family is one reason they are so comfortable.

And I would really, over the long run, hope America would fi nd some

way to provide all of our citizens with extended families – a large

group of people they could call on for help.’

Extracted from A Man Without a Country by Kurt Vonnegut, published

by Bloomsbury (£14.99)