About the book

Rose Stanton's marriage to the successful lawyer Rodney Aldrich seems to promise the life of romance she wants. Yet their strong attraction does not settle the question of what place she can occupy beside him. As she encounters the expectations of his social world, domestic dependence begins to trouble her more deeply than comfort can resolve. Her search for an independent working life carries the novel into theatrical employment and the practical demands of earning a living. Webster treats marriage as a continuing relationship that must accommodate intellect, labor, and self-respect, rather than as a reward that ends a courtship. Rose's choices test whether two people can become genuine companions without one being absorbed into the other's existence.

Marriage and equality
Work and independence
Romance and selfhood

Why read it

Read an unusually sustained early twentieth-century argument about the difference between loving someone and sharing an equal life.

English text of the 1916 novel

Contents and reading sections

Section 1
Section 2
Section 3
Section 4
Section 5
Section 6
Section 7
Section 8
Section 9
Section 10
Section 11
Section 12
Section 13
Section 14
Section 15
Section 16
Section 17
Section 18
Section 19
Section 20
Section 21
Section 22
Section 23
Section 24
Section 25
Section 26
Section 27
Section 28
Section 29
Section 30
Section 31
Section 32
Section 33
Section 34
Section 35
Section 36
Section 37
Section 38
Section 39
Section 40
Section 41
Section 42
Section 43
Section 44
Section 45
Section 46
Section 47
Section 48
Section 49
Section 50
Section 51
Section 52
Section 53
Section 54
Section 55
Section 56
Section 57
Section 58
Section 59
Section 60
Section 61
Section 62
Section 63
Section 64
Section 65
Section 66
Section 67
Section 68
Section 69
Section 70
Section 71
Section 72
Section 73
Section 74
Section 75
Section 76
Section 77
Section 78
Section 79
Section 80
Section 81
Section 82
Section 83
Section 84
Section 85
Section 86
Section 87
Section 88
Section 89
Section 90
Section 91
Section 92
Section 93
Section 94
Section 95
Section 96

About the book

Why read it

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