In Chapter 3, Van wakes up after he, Jeff, and Terry have been knocked out and kidnapped by the Herlandians. He uses imagery to describe the "absolute physical comfort" of the bed where he awakens, foreshadowing his discovery that the Herlandians have a highly advanced society:
The most prominent sensation was of absolute physical comfort. I was lying in a perfect bed: long, broad, smooth; firmly soft and level; with the finest linen, some warm light quilt of blanket, and a counterpane that was a joy to the eye. The sheet turned down some fifteen inches, yet I could stretch my feet at the foot of the bed, free but warmly covered.
Van lingers over the luxurious feeling of a bed that not only fits him, but leaves room for him to stretch without sticking his feet out the bottom. The bed is "long, broad, smooth," and "firmly soft and level." Mattresses today tend to be larger and more uniformly comfortable than they used to be due to innovation and the wider availability of materials that can be used to optimize them. Even if Van sleeps on a very comfortable mattress at home, it is unlikely that he has been doing so while traveling around with Jeff and Terry. Nor has he likely been sleeping on "the finest linen," with blankets that are not only comfortable but also beautiful and expansive. The way he describes how it feels to wake up and stretch in this warm bed invites the reader to long for a journey to Herland, just to sleep in the bed.
Van is a prisoner in Herland, but waking up feeling so safe and cozy is the first of many pleasant surprises. This land of women, which he expected to have few resources and only the most basic of social systems, turns out to far exceed his expectations. It is not that they have developed flashy technology or the most booming of economies. Rather, they have perfected simple but necessary things like the comfort of a bed, not to mention self-sustaining agriculture.
In Chapter 10, the men tell the women they are about to marry that in their culture women take their husbands' last names when they get married. Terry seems to take it in stride when Alima objects, but both his and her body language foreshadows the power struggle that will define and end their marriage:
Terry was good-humored about it. “I don’t care what you do or don’t do so long as we have that wedding pretty soon,” he said, reaching a strong brown hand after Alima’s, quite as brown and nearly as strong.
Alima dislikes the idea of taking Terry's last name because it will symbolize her subordination to him. The women of Herland like the idea of marriage insofar as it represents the partnership between men and women. They are intrigued by the idea of what they call a "bi-sexual society," in which men and women work together to parent children and help society flourish. But to Van, Jeff, and Terry (especially Terry), marriage is not so much about partnership as about men's social status and their possession of wives. The more they tell the women about the customs of marriage as they see it, the more Alima in particular bristles against the idea of becoming Terry's wife.
Terry claims that he doesn't care whether Alima changes her name as long as they get married soon. It is not that he believes in a woman's right to keep her own name. Rather, Terry seems so confident that the wedding will turn Alima into a submissive wife that he is not worried about the symbolism of her name. He demonstrates his self-assured attitude by "reaching a strong brown hand after Alima's." His attempt to hold onto her in this moment, as he daydreams about their wedding, is symbolic of his desire to grab her and control her forever. What Van notices, however, is that Alima's hand is "quite as brown and nearly as strong." This is not a woman who will passively allow herself to be grasped without fighting back. This brief glimpse of their nearly-matched strength foreshadows the way Alima will fight back when Terry uses his hands and body to assault her after they are married. Terry thinks he can do whatever he wants with Alima, and Van is starting to see that he is mistaken.
