In Chapter 3 of "Brave New World," Lenina Crowne is introduced to the reader as she rises in the elevator to the GIRLS' DRESSING ROOM where she talks with her friend, Fanny, whose surname is also Crowne. After she returns from the shower, Lenina and Fanny chat; Lenina tells Fanny that she is going out that night with Henry Foster. Fanny is appalled that Lenina is continuing to date Henry Foster and no one else as long as four months.
Lenina blushed scarlet; but her eyes, the tone of her voice remained defiant. 'No, there hasn't been any one else,' she answerd almost truculently. 'And I jolly well don't see why there should have been.
Fanny mocks Lenina, and she urges her to be careful:
It's such horribly bad form to go on and on like this with one man. At forty, or thirty-five, it wouldn't be so bad. But at your age, Lenina! No, it really won't do. And you know how strongly the D.H.C. objects to anything intense or long-drawn. Four month of Henry Foster, without having another man--why, he'd be furious if he knew....
Interspersed with the action of Chapter 3 is the philosophical look at the world by Mustapha Mond. His choice of words for family make pre-modern life "a seething brew of monogamy," a state forbidden in the New World where "everyone belongs to everyone else." Because of this social rule to which they have been conditioned, Fanny scolds Lenina for only dating one man steadily. Even though she admits that she, too, does not always feel like going from man to man, they must conform to the social standards, standards that they have been conditioned to accept. Of course, Fanny tells Lenina, she can date Henry, but Lenina should "have somebody else from time to time, that's all....there's the Director to think of. Nodding, Lenina says,
'He patted me on the behind this afternoon."
"There, you see!' Fanny was triumphant. 'That shows what he stands for. The strictest conventionality.
Lenina is made to feel guilty because she breaks the rule of having multiple partners, instead displaying a somewhat emotional interest in Bernard, an odd fellow that spends much time alone (Fanny is horrified), and whose reputation is looked at askance by others.
In addition, because of her conditioning, Lenina makes an automatic comment about the other caste, the Gammas, that she sees from the helicopter as she and Henry Foster go to play Obstacle Golf:
'My word,' said Lenina, 'I'm glad I'm not a Gamma.'
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