3 to 1

3 to 1: 3 men to each woman.

Mark Twain among others thought that polyandry was a more natural form of marriage than polygamy. His position was that the female was more capable of having sex with many men than the reverse. I believe his image was that a candle holder will outlive many candles. Our birth ratio is about equal between the sexes. I am proposing a world where a Mark Twain ratio applies; 3 men are born for every woman.

I, Jerry Thomas, am a private eye. Of my two brother husbands, Ben Johnson is a physics professor, and Bob Chapman is an accountant. We are tiloks, triple income lots of kids. Our wife, Sara Smithers is a stay at home mom. With 5 rugrats, 4 boys and a girl, nothing else makes sense. My brother husbands and I were born into normal families. We have many brothers and an occasional sister. Surprisingly, Sara has two sisters and a single brother.

After the kids are put to bed, around 9 PM, Sara takes care of those of us who are desirous of sex on that day. That is an average of two guys a night. Occasionally it is three; early in our marriages it might have been four times, but only with the three of us. Sara never complained that we overworked her. If she complained, which was seldom, it was the opposite that the guys were not keeping up their end. We knew our place. When she complained, one of us stepped up. Sara originally scheduled an hour for a session. It was soon clear that this was longer than necessary. A half hour was enough, and it gave Sara the opportunity to watch some television in the evening.

I am one of five private investigators at my office. Our secretary, Dolores Cortes, called Della after Perry Mason's assistant, is also our troubleshooter. Perry's Della always traveled with him, and I doubt that Perry sprung for two rooms. I don't think however that she ever gave in to Paul Drake. She enjoyed teasing him too much. Similarly, we have a couch in a conference room where our Della takes excellent care of over stressed investigators. I know this care is excellent from personal experience, Della also has five brother husbands, but the only overwork she complains about is typing.

Exclusivity is not part of our marriage, and seldom in any marriages. If Sara meets an interesting guy at a party on our block, she will tell her husbands to have fun at the party, and then take him to our house. Similarly, Sara has no problem with my occasional sessions with Della.

Since exclusivity is unusual in marriage, it had been seven years since we had a cheating case in our office. Now, four brother husbands wanted us to check on their wife, Julie. Julie was, of all things, a scheduler for an escort service. None of the husbands thought that her cheating was job related. They said that she was too professional for that. Our problem, how do you catch someone cheating whose job is to book and sometimes check on hotel rooms?

Della immediately said the solution is simple. Drop a voice recorder in her purse. In less than a week, we had the answer. An old high school boyfriend had reappeared. True to her professionalism, she did not use her service's hotels. Boyfriend was single and had his own apartment near the escort service. Julie skipped some lunches for horizontal exercise. Her schedule never changed; it was great for her figure, and she thought that she was in the clear. The quickness of the job allowed us to charge less than the husbands expected and still make a great profit. A win for our side.

At least it was until Julie was murdered. Someone had a clever idea. A plastic gun and an ice bullet, the evidence melted away and the gun was untraceable. All the husbands were out at the time of death. One was at a movie, one was at a play, and two attended a concert together.

All had tickets, and all had witnesses to verify where they were at the beginning and end of each event. Only the two together had witnesses for during the event, and they were both suspects. No prosecutor was willing to take any of the husbands to trial. There were three other likely suspects, and many spouses that might have a grudge against the escort service. Reasonable doubt prevailed. Everyone in our office believed that our clients were guilty of a conspiracy, but we had neither proof nor interest in turning them in. Sometimes justice doesn't prevail.