Dem Khevre-Mans Vayb / Love Poems of a Philanderer's Wive by Henny Wenkart (paperback)

Love Poems of a Philanderer's Wife by Henny Wenkart, translated by Mindy Rinkewich.

She is a secure little Jewish girl, daughter of a lawyer in beautiful Vienna before the Nazis - a city full of palaces, parks and music. He is a litle boy in Nazi Frankfurt, where Jews like him are already beaten up, and all little boys, even Jewish ones, admire the tall, black-clad SS. Both families come to America, where at first they are very poor. The boy and girl grow up knowing one another and later, in college, fall in love. But German Jews don't like Jews from Vienna. He is not supposed to date, much less marry, her.

So they elope, love each other, work hard, give grandchildren to their parents, are faithful to each other, and for a long time all seems well. His father always taught him that real men are not monogamous. The young couple think this is nonsense - at least, she believes that they both think this. Very gradually she starts to sense that something is wrong - then WHAT it is - then WHO it is. Nowadays first wives don't die young, as they did centuries ago. They live and sometimes are discarded for "arm candy" - and they, not the candy or the man, are supposed to feel shame. These poems develop the courage and good sense to reject that role.