Did married women serve in TOS era Starfleet?

[Hartzilla2007]

From the novels, Atish Khatami was married to a civilian who lived on a Federation colony.

--Sran

A colony which was attacked by brain parasites.

Which given that Khatami was a TOS era Starfleet starship captain and how the TOS era seems to bring out a streak of sadism in its writers towards TOS era Starfleet starship captains (judging by TOS), its surprising the guy wasn't killed during the attack from the afore mentioned brain parasites.

I think that line in "Adonais" is just a stray 1960s artifact that's best forgotten and quietly slipped under the rug . . . .

Oh, no doubt, and this was neither the first nor only time 1960s sexism was injected into TOS. The line in "The Cage" about Pike not being used to having a woman on the bridge comes to mind.

Oh, yeah, that's cringe-inducing, too.

Its also funny as hell considering he said right after getting a print out from a station right next to a female bridge officer.

 

[Enterprise1701]

TAS - "The Survivor" debuted the information that McCoy was a divorced father. His marriage could have overlapped with part of his early career.

I just finished rewatching "Who Mourns for Adonias?" and a particular comment caught my attention. During the opening scene Bones and Kirk are discussing Lt. Palamas and Bones states 'someday she will find the right man and leave the service ' which causes Kirk to lament how he will 'lose an officer'.
So I have two questions:

First, was there ever a female Starfleet officer on a TOS episode that was married?

Second, does that mean that women who married were required to leave Starfleet during the TOS era? (That's an in universe question)

Any sexism and 1960s American social values aside, the practical point remains. If you're not serving on the same ship as your spouse (and there's no guarantee that Starfleet Command will help you with that), then you will be apart from your spouse for very long periods of time. Did canon TOS ever give any information about starbase life?

 

[Marsden]

Maybe it was a well known fact on board ship that Palamis was only biding her time in the Star Service until she could find the right man.
Who knows, she may have come from a very very traditional family background!!!

I think this is a good line of thinking, though. The Dr and Capt. know her, so it's not necessarily a line about women in general but about Carolyn herself.

I realize that may have not been the episode writer's intention, but I like to rationalize things. And this doesn't seem a strech to me.

So, no cringing for me.

The only thing that makes me cringe in Star Trek is when Mr. Spock can't explain sex without a loss for words or even embarassment.

I never thought it was a matter of Starfleet policy. Just an old-fashioned attitude that crept into the script for "Adonais."

One cringes today, but back in 1960s it was more or less expected that women would quit work once they settled down and got married.

To be fair, it's only the "leave the service" bit which pins it down as old-fashioned. If the interpretation were to instead be that Kirk was thinking that somebody who marries will want to start a family, and to facilitate that he/she would need to take a job away from a starship (because starships of this era do not carry families on board), then the entire premise could still stand up to scrutiny.

But yeah, the line about leaving the service does sound slightly off. Realistically she shouldn't need to leave 'the service' (Starfleet) as a whole, she'd simply be taking another assignment.

Well, this reminds me of all of the "Is Starfleet a job or a career" threads. Not everybody in Star Fleet is a lifer, some are there for a time and then go on to other things. And as I just said, Carolyn may have been clear about only serving a set amount of time. A term of enlistment that is not intended to be renewed, in other words.

 

[T'Girl]

The only thing that makes me cringe in Star Trek is when Mr. Spock can't explain sex without a loss for words or even embarassment.

The EMH would later describe Vulcan's attitude concerning sex as "Victorian." This nicely fits in with Spock trying to talk about sex to Kirk in amok time.

 

[Marsden]

The only thing that makes me cringe in Star Trek is when Mr. Spock can't explain sex without a loss for words or even embarassment.

The EMH would later describe Vulcan's attitude concerning sex as "Victorian." This nicely fits in with Spock trying to talk about sex to Kirk in amok time.

I should have clarified, I was referring to "The Apple".

In Amok Time, it was more of a secret about how illogical the process was than the actual biology of it. I could and do accept that would be embarrassing, also it's personally happening to Spock.

I don't want to repeat anything from "The Apple."

 

[T'Girl]

^ Never understood The Apple's position on Vaal instructing the natives on sex.

I mean, why couldn't it? About half the people I know learned about sex from the internet.

 

[FormerLurker]

^Vaal didn't want its people having sex. It didn't have the kind of fine-tuned control of the environment needed to keep the women from getting pregnant, so it forbade sex at all. No sex, no babies. And Vaal didn't want babies, as that meant population growth, and less and less control over them.

And no, I have no explanation for how Vaal could keep them from aging, but not be able to keep the women from getting pregnant.

 

[T'Girl]

Their not aging might have had nothing to do with Vaal, beyond the health environment.

 

[Christopher]

Of course, it was really just a Garden of Eden allegory -- they were "pure" and asexual until Captain Kirk brought them the titular fruit of knowledge and threw them out of Paradise. Although it's reworked a bit, since the serpent was the one keeping them in paradise rather than tempting them to partake.

 

[PCz911]

Another oddity in "The Cage" is the Talosians seem to suggest Pike can choose either Vina, Number One, or Colt to be the mother of a slave race. Why wouldn't they think to let him mate with all three?

Every time I watch that episode that's my choice. Maybe beam a few more women down from the ship.

Or just have all the crew beam down under some illusion and destroy the ship. Suddenly you have a breeding colony. Ta da. Problem solved.

 

[T'Girl]

Another oddity in "The Cage" is the Talosians seem to suggest Pike can choose either Vina, Number One, or Colt to be the mother of a slave race. Why wouldn't they think to let him mate with all three?

The Talosians were inside of Pike's head, maybe they saw that Pike was a monogamist kind of guy.

 

[Wingsley]

I never thought it was a matter of Starfleet policy. Just an old-fashioned attitude that crept into the script for "Adonais."

One cringes today, but back in 1960s it was more or less expected that women would quit work once they settled down and got married.

To be fair, it's only the "leave the service" bit which pins it down as old-fashioned. If the interpretation were to instead be that Kirk was thinking that somebody who marries will want to start a family, and to facilitate that he/she would need to take a job away from a starship (because starships of this era do not carry families on board), then the entire premise could still stand up to scrutiny.

But yeah, the line about leaving the service does sound slightly off. Realistically she shouldn't need to leave 'the service' (Starfleet) as a whole, she'd simply be taking another assignment.

I would tend to agree with Lance's take on this. Federation starships of this era may, from time to time, accommodate civilian passengers and specialists for certain missions, but starships were primarily for Starfleet personnel and there do not appear to be any facilities on board the Enterprise for nursing, daycare, or routine schooling like we see on the Enterprise-D. You can say "we saw kids enjoy themselves in the rec room during 'And the Children Shall Lead' ", but it's quite a leap to imagine a long-term resident population of kids aboard Kirk's Enterprise. Given this, it's logical to assume that Lt. Palamas, if she was known to be looking to find a mate, would certainly have to accept a "ground assignment" if she wanted to have a family. There is nothing explicit, only implicit, in the conversation between Kirk and McCoy that Lt. Palamas would be resigning to be a full-time homemaker. For all we know, she may continue with her Starfleet career as a married woman with kids, just not as part of the "star service" aboard a deep space vessel. It should be obvious from what we see in TOS that long-term family life and duty aboard a starship do not mix.

But back to the O.P.; there was only one character in TOS who was clearly said to be betrothed, by pre-arranged marriage: Spock. (In "Amok Time", he clearly referred to T'Pring as his wife.) Of course, that didn't go well.

Aside from Spock, it is disappointing that there are no TOS characters of either gender that come to mind as being married. There was the direct implication that crewmembers aboard a starship can marry, as seen in "Balance of Terror", and this leaves open the possibility that being in the "star service" is not incompatible with being married. I believe Dr. McCoy was supposedly divorced. There was no clear indication of the marital status of Scott, Uhura, Sulu, Chekov, Kyle, Chapel, Leslie or any of the other characters. It's a shame nobody ever thought of giving any of these characters a little more depth (or "backstory", in Hollywoodese), but TOS was originally going to be focused on Captain Kirk, with all the other characters simply supporting that role. It was only after the series got underway that TOS gradually evolved into more of an ensemble show. (Looks like it evolved by accident, if you ask me.)

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Spock remained unmarried for TOS.

 

[Christopher]

It's a shame nobody ever thought of giving any of these characters a little more depth (or "backstory", in Hollywoodese), but TOS was originally going to be focused on Captain Kirk, with all the other characters simply supporting that role. It was only after the series got underway that TOS gradually evolved into more of an ensemble show. (Looks like it evolved by accident, if you ask me.)

Actually it's kind of the other way around, at least where the supporting players are concerned. Look at really early episodes like "The Corbomite Maneuver," "The Man Trap," and "The Naked Time" and there's a lot of focus on the supporting characters like Sulu, Rand, and Scotty -- much more of a sense that the show is about the whole team rather than one or two leads. But as the series went on, it became more tightly focused on the big three, with the others relegated to the background (except for Chekov, who was added specifically to boost ratings among young viewers). Neither Sulu nor Uhura ever got an episode focused on them, and the episode that was going to be a Sulu focus ("This Side of Paradise") got rewritten for Spock.

It is true that the intended focus on Kirk gave way to an increasing emphasis on Spock, and that the show ended up being built around the Kirk-Spock-McCoy triumvirate, but the rest of the ensemble was better served at the start of the series than it was later on. Basically, Spock's popularity eclipsed everyone else's, the network kept pushing for more focus on Spock, and the only other characters who avoided being marginalized were the two who had the closest relationships with Spock. Although that's largely because Roddenberry and Shatner fought so hard to keep Kirk in the spotlight.

Perhaps the best illustration of how Spock's dominance hurt the rest of the ensemble is "Spock's Brain." It's a terrific episode for Scotty, Sulu, Uhura, and Chekov, with all of them getting to participate materially in the story. But the only reason that's possible is because Spock isn't around to do it all himself like he usually does.

 

[T'Girl]

If you're not serving on the same ship as your spouse (and there's no guarantee that Starfleet Command will help you with that), then you will be apart from your spouse for very long periods of time.

The American military tries fairly hard to place military married to military couples on the same base (this isn't alway possible). One advantage of this is that it encourages reenlistment.

I don't believe that any effort is made today to place spouses aboard the same naval ship, I've heard stories of spouses ending up on the same ship, but it's basically a coincidence.

Similar to modern bases, Starfleet could make a effort to keep couples together aboard the same ship ... when they can.

it is disappointing that there are no TOS characters of either gender that come to mind as being married

We find out in Generations that Sulu has a (then) adult daughter. The actresses was 33 years, but the character was an ensign. Making the assumption that Sulu was married to the woman's mother, and given the daughter's rank this could make TOS era Sulu married.

 

[borgboy]

For what it's worth the novels flesh out details of Sulu's life, especially in Peter David's The Captain's Daughter, and Sulu wasn't married to Damora's mother.
For what it's worth, I'm surprised that the actress was 33 she looked much younger, and since she was an ensign, I'm assuming the character was intended to be younger.

 

[PCz911]

For what it's worth, I'm surprised that the actress was 33 she looked much younger, and since she was an ensign, I'm assuming the character was intended to be younger.

I assume she was in the movie because George didn't want to do a cameo? I don't recall any TOS , movie or voyager content with sulu that showed or implied marriage.

PS. I recall thinking the actress (Kim) who played demora was less than good, had bad hair and was quite average looking. Given her age vs the intended (implied ) age of the character I am left to wonder what the casting director was thinking.

 

[Christopher]

PS. I recall thinking the actress (Kim) who played demora was less than good, had bad hair and was quite average looking. Given her age vs the intended (implied ) age of the character I am left to wonder what the casting director was thinking.

No doubt the casting director liked Jacqueline Kim more than you do. So have other casting directors. Taste is subjective.

 

[T'Girl]

I'm surprised that the actress was 33 she looked much younger, and since she was an ensign, I'm assuming the character was intended to be younger.

The Harry Kim syndrome.

 

[Wingsley]

Spock remained unmarried for TOS.

From "Amok Time", Bridge scene when the Enterprise approaches Vulcan:

UHURA: Captain. We're standing by on Vulcan hailing frequencies, sir.

KIRK: Open the channel, Lieutenant. Vulcan Space Central, this is the USS Enterprise requesting permission to assume standard orbit.

VULCAN [OC]: USS Enterprise from Vulcan Space Central. Permission granted. And from all of Vulcan, welcome. Is Commander Spock with you?

SPOCK: This is Spock.

VULCAN [OC]: Standby to activate your central viewer, please.

(Nurse Chapel enters.)

CHAPEL: Doctor, what's going on?

(The viewscreen lights up with the image of a very beautiful woman.)

T'PRING [on viewscreen]: Spock, it is I.

SPOCK: T'Pring, parted from me and never parted, never and always touching and touched. We meet at the appointed place.

T'PRING [on viewscreen]: Spock, parted from me and never parted, never and always touching and touched. I await you.

UHURA: She's lovely, Mister Spock. Who is she?

SPOCK: She is T'Pring, my wife.

That's pretty conclusive.