They appear to be treated with indifference and contempt.

They are suffered to become the bridegrooms of one night, after which they die very quickly.

By contrast, the lives of the rest are very long.

Ants live for at least three or four years, but the males live only long enough to perform their solitary function.
In the foregoing little fantasy, the one thing that should have most impressed you is the fact of the suppression of sex.

But now comes the last and most astonishing fact of all: this suppression of sex is not natural, but artificial--I mean that it is voluntary.