(3 of 3)
The result of all this asserting herself has been a new awareness in the others: she is somebody to be reckoned with. It has made a change in her husband: he is more available to discussion, even argument, more willing to listen, even give way. He hasn't—and isn't about to—become an apron-tied caricature, a grocery-lugging, mop-wielding, cooking-and-diapering paragon, but he can now see the Victorian darkness overshadowing her days, can see that time is of the essence, for her, as well as for himself. The long hours in front of the brilliant panorama of the Rose Bowl still go on, but they can be interrupted. Perhaps it is because of exposure to her more militant sisters in the press or on TV, but he is more willing to listen and often concedes that she is right.
He is now even willing to concede that, as she has long asserted, there are men who don't like women, hostile men, and he listens soberly when she adds something new to her assertion: she will no longer tolerate them. In her house, or any other phase of her life. This is really an advance, and other smaller ones have followed in its wake. For instance, she has begun to think about the necessity of financial independence: if she has, or earns, no money of her own, she has begun to think about a job, part-time now, full-time later. If she has money of her own, she has begun to ask questions about separate bank accounts, separate tax returns. Though she is not about to chuck the whole setup, she now acknowledges that the day may come when she does want to chuck it for valid reasons and, except in the case of a deep grudge that would need satisfaction, she does not want the decision to rest on her eligibility for a monthly alimony check. She does not want to be dependent on a monthly alimony check.
But most likely she will not divorce. At least not casually, and certainly not for any principle or idea. Moreover, she likes, or loves, her children, and though they are often a terrible drain on her emotions and strength, she is simply not prepared to delegate most of their care to someone else. She also likes, or loves, her husband, and though she is no longer willing to put up with anything she considers an infringement on her rights or dignity, she is not about to blow up the whole works by refusing to do what was contracted at the onset of her marriage, namely Women's Work—which covers everything from enduring labor pains to counting laundry. Though that is the nasty hooker—that so much should ever have become, way back, Women's Work exclusively—the hard fact is that it did. And the other hard fact is that no one, including her sisters in sodality, has figured out a way of reversing history, of turning it all around in a way that would work. Moreover, much as she loathes much of Women's Work, she likes some of it too, reactionary as it seems. And she isn't someone who thinks she can have her cake and eat it too. On the contrary, she knows all too well that everything in this world has its price. If she's ready to break the commitment, then she has to pay that price. Actually," this constant self-evaluation, this weighing of prices to be paid for one thing or another, is, like the experience in the hall, one of the important changes in her life: a short while back it would never have occurred to her to ask if the price was right. At all.