When the World Fell Silent

by Donna Jones Alward

I wasn’t really interested in marriage. There were too many things I wanted to do first.

What Jane would say: it’s not how a lady behaves, and I must be careful not to get a reputation as a loose woman. It boggled my brain how, if men engaged in such behaviours, they were lauded.

Everybody seemed to be making the most of the time they had; time was the one thing that no longer seemed guaranteed.

I was so tired of being told how a woman should act. That my identity needed to be tied up in being someone’s wife or someone’s mother, as if those were a woman’s only contributions of value. A woman should be able to have a career she loved. She should have a say in her own life without needing a man’s approval or permission.