Chapter OneShattering the Illusion . . . if I continue to endure you a little longer, I may by degrees
dwindle into a wife [italics added].
Millamant, in
The Way of the World by William Congreve
What happens when women turn into wives? Too often they dwindle, which is why Congreve's phrase, written in 1700, reverberates so clearly today. A snippet from the opposite end of the literary spectrum, the gossip column of the
New York Post, observed that the two wives of New York financier Sid Bass had apparently traded identities. "Mercedes, the current Mrs. Sid Bass, has metamorphosed from uninhibited and fun loving to tense and chilly. Whereas Anne, the former Mrs. Sid Bass and the original ice princess, is now the outgoing one, the one you want to sit next to." The same topic came up when Tory, a hu ...
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