The idea for this came from a story I read. There was a lot more going on in the story and this was a pretty minor point overall, only being brought up a handful of times in the entire story, but it definitely caught my attention.
In the story in question the main character was brought up without parents which was pretty much the norm for her society, so this wasn’t really something she thought on all that much. You learn at the end of the story that her parents are around, though neither of them has any sort of parental role in her life and they don’t in fact know she is their daughter. It’s been a while since I read the story, but I think they were more like colleagues. It struck me as extremely sad.
The story was all about the daughter who was just trying to make sure she survived what was going to happen. Parents weren’t even on her radar.
We got the point of view of at least one of her parents at some point. I forgot which, but I think it was her mother mostly because of the hair color. It was the viewpoint of someone who had lost something. She saw the main character and her hair drew her attention. It wasn’t that she thought the main character was her daughter, but that she knew her daughter’s hair was that color and it made her remember the daughter she had given up. I forget if she had other children, but I don’t think so.
In this society there was a being who had lived long ago who had found a way to manipulate everything to bring about his return and that included creating engagements that were purely for the point of creating a strong child who could bring him back. I think the main character was that person, but she did some research and decided that would be a really bad idea for her survival.
The idea for this prompt, however, follows the parents in this situation. It is a fact that in our world a lot of people get divorced, but it is also a fact that a lot of people marry one person and live the rest of their lives with that person. Imagine a society where there was what is essentially a 100% divorce rate and you didn’t want to leave. What would you do to save that relationship? Would you leave the society entirely? Would you try to change society? Or would you give up even though you didn’t want to?