Reply To: Martha and Ephraim’s past
I think I commented in an earlier post how moving and respectful I found Ephraim’s defense of Martha after the rape, the immediate marriage and “go to housekeeping” and his deferral to her to determine when she was ready for sexual relations with him. This seems like an entirely different basis for a marriage and how I would have expected a man to regard his wife for the times.
In “The Midwife’s Tale,” there is much more written about their relationship and more of Martha’s diary entries. In the diaries, Martha describes a more complex relationship, one with some of the kinds of conflicts or ups and downs one might expect in a marriage. It is clear from Martha’s diary entries that she views and expects Ephraim to be a “friend” as well as husband and economic partner in their marriage. For the most part, that appears to be the case even as they navigate conflicts with their children, economic hardship and Ephraim’s imprisonment for an unpaid debt.
The description of their early marriage is fiction (and there is no evidence in the diaries of Martha having been raped). But the spirit of the relationship described does seem to have been pretty close to the truth.
