Martianess n.

[punning on ‘marchionesses’] ‘I wish to goodness I’d been a native of Mars instead of this planet.’ ‘In order, I suppose, that you might have been ’steen million miles away from me?’ queried the count. ‘Yes, that is one reason. Another is that I could have had a title without the humiliating necessity of becoming the wife of a superannuated chimpanzee to obtain it.’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘Why, stupid one, does it not follow, according to all the rules of grammar, that if the men are called Martians the women must be called Martianesses?’

The petticoat and bodice are the real costume. They are cobwebby lace, and trimmed with ribbons. Blue ribbons for the young and innocent, pink for the frivolous, scarlet and purple for the very, very naughty. And unless you wish to be mistaken for a Martianess, you must wear a huge mosquito net–like veil, liberally sprinkled with some sticky substance resembling sago afloating down your back.

Then they gave us such a yarn as made us gape: / They were Martian superwimmin, an’ they said they’d come out swimmin’ from a fashionable beach jest roun’ the Cape. / Cries the Cap: ‘Ye’re Martianesses? Ye don’t say so? Why, Lor’ bless us! Ye’re the very sort of folks we came to meet.’

Yesterday I wired to my Marchioness—excuse me, my Martianess as usual—and after some preliminary talk I was dumbfounded when she sent me the following message: ‘Bud, will you marry me?’ I was so flabbergasted I couldn’t stop to calculate how it happened that Leap Year occurred on Mars at the same time as on the Earth, and I was so flurried that I answered ‘Yes’ before I knew what I was doing.

The appraisal completed, a Martian is given a copy of his rating in detail. Another copy is placed in the public records, and is open to everyone. A total rating is given in each field, and a final total for the whole personality. There was much jeering at the thought of including in the same rating such diverse attributes as gastric secretions and artistic creativeness, until it [was] observed how often Martianesses had to make just such appraisals in deciding which Martians to marry.

A manuscript is found in the earth, telling merely the story of one particular Martian (or Martianess would be more accurate).

‘You’re a Martian and I’m a Martian and Miriam’s a Martian too—or a Martianess. You aren’t of this world unless you’ve got a name like Ah Koo. The Norman Club can prove it.’ ‘Nuts!’ said Hansen succinctly.

[The narrator is experiencing a body-swap.] I stare through the car window like a Martianess, delighting in the quaint costumes, in the crewcut boys—until I realize that my glances might be misinterpreted and I must not, in any way, compromise Maria Montez, a Universal superstar and sex symbol who is, nevertheless, a perfect wife and loyal in every way to Gallic heartthrob Jean-Pierre Aumont.

Devil Girl From Mars, 1954…. Patricia Laffen is unforgettable as a stern, black-clad, dominatrix-like Martianess out to recruit reluctant Earth males (they’re British) for the purpose of repopulating her imperiled planet.