I had been expecting it. Ever since the Matriarchal Party had swept to power, the noose had been closing. But, I have to give the leadership credit. While they had steadily tightened their grip on the male population, the pace had been slow, slow enough and uneven enough to avoid panic or mass migration out of the country. Like lobsters in a pot, the water was nearly boiling before we realized the trouble we were in. By then it was too late. Passports had been revoked, borders closed, the franchise limited to women, marriage rights shifted radically in favor of wives, the "excess" savings and investments of unmarried men seized for "reparations."
Then came the series of "Custodial Laws," increasingly limiting the freedoms of unmarried men, essentially making them minors in the eyes of the law. Up to the age of maturity, a male was under the custodial responsibility of his mother, who also determined whether and when he was ready to leave her control. After he reached maturity, his mother could opt to retain control, marry him off, or transfer him to another accountable adult woman. Custodians decided if and where he could work, controlled his finances, and were legally responsible for his behavior; soon men were not allowed to have personal bank accounts or credit cards, nor hold property without a Custodian's co-signature. By law, positions of authority were now reserved for women. Men in executive and managerial positions were released or demoted. Increasingly, male employment was limited to clerical, service, retail, and unskilled positions. chefs became servers; corporate vice presidents became administrative assistants; regional sales directors became sales clerks.
Language shifted, too, slowly at first, then with remarkable speed. The Female Restitution and Reparations Act contained provisions that banned the use of patriarchal titles (e.g., sir, mister) in official correspondence and made the mother's family name that of the child, codifying what were developing social practices. Women who had names with a patriarchal etymology - "Mc-" and "Mac-" and "O'-" and "-son" most prominently - were encouraged to change to matriarchal alternatives; eventually the government banned the use of such surnames entirely. My mother's family had long carried the surname McAdams, but they changed that (keeping the Biblical allusion) to Eden.
Public usage of diminutive terms like "girl" or "gal" to refer to grown women became a fineable and then an imprisonable offense; harsher sentences were handed out to those foolish enough to use derogatory terms when referring to women or their body parts. Conversely, given their legal status as something akin to unemancipated minors, adult men came to be referred to both in legal matter and in common parlance as mere "boys." Similarly, the rules of grammar shifted, with all Women's names and pronouns either remaining or becoming capitalized, while men's names and pronouns became all lower case. Mother named me larkin Eden, with my personal name lower case while Her family name was capitalized. As was becoming increasingly common, i was known by a diminutive nickname: "lark."
By the time they were completed and extended, the Custodial Laws had transformed men into chattel in all but name. Their custodial rights could be bought and sold; collars replaced wedding rings first in marriage ceremonies then in civil law; in public, males were required not only be collared but to have a tag on the collar displaying the Custodian's name and contact information. Social norms, which had long objectified Women's bodies, were reversed. In art, in advertising, in entertainment, it became the male body that was displayed and judged. The millennials-long prohibition on publicly showing the penis and scrotum evaporated. Wives talked openly about how well hung their husbands were ... or complained that they were not. Cock length and girth, head size, circumcision, and scrotal fullness were remarked upon as openly and as normally as people used to refer to breast size and cleavage.
Of course, ours is a large country, a continent really, and practices differ by region. The Matriarchal shift came to the coastal urban areas first, but spread out from there. As large corporations, media empires, and other institutions took up and trumpeted Matriarchal values, changes percolated across the land. The nature of our federal system meant that some of the more conservative provinces could provide some, limited relief. Where I lived, both local norms and regional governments cushioned us from the full brunt of the tides shifting in the nation. Things controlled by the national government (passports, air travel, interstate commerce, national taxes) could either be denied to males or used against us, but local enforcement even of national laws was quite lax for a good long time. Locally, many Women were slow to seize the full powers offered them by the new national government, and state and county and city governments in my region allowed men a wide variety of freedoms that were evaporating elsewhere. For a long time, men like me were allowed to continue our educations, participate fully in the unofficial economy, travel locally without restrictions, consent freely to marriage, even - with the collusion of sympathetic Women - hold title to property.
That, however, was too good to last. In the name of national unity and uniformity of (Women's) rights across the country, the national government began to take fuller control of what was known as GCP, gender control policy. Through a series of laws, executive actions, and court filings, the national government began to aggressively assert and extend national standards to the treatment of "boys." Tighter control of the banking system made it more difficult to exist even in the informal economy; forceful enforcement of tax laws made it more difficult for compassionate Women to cover for males owning property. Most importantly for me, nationalization of custodial standards and inheritance laws made it possible for both the national government and individual Women to pursue "seizure actions" across provincial lines.
i had been born into a tolerant and traditional family. my Mother was certainly the head of the household, but She treated my father kindly. She encouraged him to pursue his various interests and hobbies. She loved me as Her only child, seeing that i received as good an education as a daughter would have and allowed me complete latitude in choosing if and with whom i'd become involved romantically. When i came of age, She extended Her legal custodianship of me, but allowed me great freedom and supported my efforts to find my own place and set up my own woodworking business. Tragically, both of my parents died in an automobile accident when i was 23. Since my Mother died without any close Female heirs, i became a ward of the Executrix of Her estate, an old family friend name Abi Nash, who happened to be a lawyer. If anything, Ms. Abi was even more supportive of my desire to live independently than my Mother had been. Technically my Custodian, in point of fact She was my mentor and collaborator. She guided me through the legal and financial niceties of running a business in the unofficial economy, co-signed for me to have my own house, and encouraged me to live as independently as i could, never pressuring me to marry. Generally, she shielded me from the tide of Female supremacist sentiment rising both nationally and increasingly in our community.
i honestly don't know what would have happened had Ms. Abi lived. Perhaps She could have continued to shelter and protect me for an indefinite period of time. But maybe not. As it happened, at age 54 She died suddenly of an aneurism, and my life changed markedly and almost immediately. As my Custodian, Ms. Abi officially held title to my house and owned the accounts that had offered me at least limited access to the banking system. my phone and utilities were legally in Her name. At Her death, everything was frozen. i couldn't access any of my money, since neither the banks nor the government considered it my money. my phone was disconnected almost immediately; the utilities would be suspended at the end of the billing cycle. Until Her estate was settled, i would have to survive on the small "rainy day" stash i kept in the house and whatever cash sales i could manage.
i was soon to learn that settling Her estate would be easier said than done. Like the cobbler with holes in Her shoes, Ms. Abi - though a lawyer - died intestate, without a will. Though W/we had never discussed it any detail, Ms. Abi had left me with the impression that should anything happen to Her, my Custodianship (along with of austen, Her husband) would pass to Her trusted partner in the law firm of Shaw and Nash, Ms. Celeste Shaw, whom i both knew and liked.
However, when i called the office both to express my condolences and to see if there was anything i needed to do under the stipulations of my Custodian's will, Ms. Shaw gave me the bad news that Ms. Abi hadn't left a will. She talked with me for some time, trying to reassure me, but i could tell from the tone of Her voice that all was not well. She explained the probate process to me. Without a will, there was no Executrix, so the provincial court would decide on inheritance matters. Traditionally, probate had been entirely a provincial matter, dictated by provincial rules and local case law. But Ms. Shaw warned me that recently enacted federal laws had curtailed much provincial discretion in probate matters in ways that were still being interpreted. She left unsaid what W/we both new: these federal laws were unlikely to work in my favor.
Ms. Shaw told me that in Her experience the provincial courts usually handled probate quickly and efficiently. That was good news. The court would inventory Ms. Abi's (considerable) assets and (modest) debts. Assets had always included unofficial, "grey area" resources such as bank accounts and property held for a custodial boy, since legally these belonged to the Custodian. That was the bad news. Several provinces, such as the one in which i lived, had essentially allowed for the unofficial manumission of boys by allowing the estate to serve as the Custodian indefinitely, a workable legal fiction. Recently, however, federal court rulings had clarified ambiguities and inconsistencies such as these in provincial laws. The emerging precedent was that boys must be considered assets like any other, assigned a monetary value if used to settle the decedent's debts or passing directly to beneficiaries, whether named in the will or identified by the probate court. That was the worse news.
As i mulled this, i asked, "Do You know anything of Ms. Abi's family, Her heirs?"
"No, lark, not much. Do you?"
