To The Many Women Like Me, Cast Into Marriage And A Husband

Before there was the 'liberation' movement, a woman came of age and took her place beside a husband. It happened seamlessly. I was expected that a family started immediately, a first child within the year. This was the case with me. Except no child came.

I was invited to a breakfast, and it was suggested that my husband was impotent. It was me, I had not given myself to him. In fact he had a child with a young woman my age. I begged him not to touch me as my husband. The pressure to prove the marriage was on his mind. He ordered me. Never, not my father or a brother, ordered me. As his wife I had taken the vow of obedience.

Five years almost to the day I delivered a son. The marriage was saved, and his reputation.

We have been married officially for fifty years, forty five true years, but only the old are counting.

During these many years my husband has respected my deviation. Accompanied across a half century by his lover, his true wife.