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words are said in a whisper.
    “Did you know that’s illegal?”  Of course, she knew it was illegal.  Everyone knows it’s illegal.  But she was only 18 at the time, and where was her mother?
    “Your mother went along with it?” I ask as gently as I can.
    “My mother’s dead,” she says, and starts crying again. “She died when I was a kid.  My fathers were having a hard time.  They thought the double wedding would be okay.  They were really struggling financially.”
    So Gwyneth married Graham—whose personality was obviously unsuited to marriage, or why would his family insist on forgoing premarital counseling—along with his brother Kyle.  Then Graham’s mother brokered two additional matches for the poor girl.
    “Graham and Kyle did whatever their mother said.  And Kyle and the other two did whatever Graham said,” sniffles Gwyneth. “They decided when I would have sex, and with who.  Mostly it was with Graham, but he let the others have turns, too.”
    What a mess.  Unbelievable.  But that’s the kind of thing that can happen when people have the freedom to arrange marriages without going through suitability testing.  I’m all for freedom, just not the freedom to put oneself and others in danger. I’m hoping that Parliament will soon pass an ordinance requiring, instead of just recommending, that marriage licenses be contingent upon standardized pre-marital evaluations.
    It’s a sad fact that some men are simply not husband material. And some women, like poor Gwyneth’s mother-in-law, should never have children—although things are so bad now, every woman has to have children, no matter what.
    “My mother-in-law was determined to get a granddaughter, and she got madder and madder at me, every time I had a boy,” Gwyneth confides. “So she didn’t care how they treated me.  I took it as long as I could, and then I finally went for help.”
    I schedule counseling sessions with Gwyneth right up until the date the baby is due.
    I’m going to take a year off then.  The baby will need me, and I can also devote myself to Rebekah.  Listening to Gwyneth reminded me how much girls need mothers. Rebekah was without one for most of her life before she came to live with us.
    There are things only a mother—or a dedicated mother-substitute—can pass on to a young girl.  There are things men just don’t know about, and probably shouldn’t know about.
    Tom knows more than most.  But even he doesn’t know everything.  Men are better off not knowing.  And women are in serious jeopardy if they don’t learn how to control their lives as women.  It’s just the way it is.

Chapter 6
    Susannah
    The Easter-Esther Festival
     
    I admit it. I’m uneasy about the festival. It’s supposed to make people feel lighthearted, hopeful, happy. It just makes me feel uncomfortable—too much of a mishmash of religion and revelry.
    Don’t get me wrong.  I have nothing against the parade, plays, costumes, craft shows, and giant rabbits handing out treats to children. And I’m grateful as the next person that spring has come again, although I kind of figured it would.
    It’s just that, in recent years, the other, more adult, parts of the Easter-Esther Festival seem to be getting out of hand.  Out of control.
    I have trouble understanding why people think excessive drinking, bawdy cross-dressing, and the copulation of married women with single men as an act of charity—topped off by a pious sunrise service and prayers—will please The Designer.
    If there is a designer.
    Some people, not many, don’t believe there’s a designer at all.
    Sam is one of those people.  Maybe because he considers himself a man of science.  He’s a dentist, after all.  But he’s very much in favor of the Easter-Esther Festival.  He enjoys it immensely, and participates in just about everything but the sunrise service.
    Of all my husbands, Sam is probably the most self-sufficient, the most independent.  He takes