（外文电子版资料）Suzette Haden Elgin - Only A Housewife.pdf

file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruiswijk/Mijn%20do...nten/spaar/Suzette%20Haden%20Elgin%20-%20Only%20A%20Housewife.txt SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN ONLY A HOUSEWIFE The last straw for Joro Belledarien -- the event that pushed him over the edge from weary apathy to frustrated rage and gave him the courage to defy everyone and everything he knew -- was his little sisters puberty ceremony. So long as Elizabeth, like Joro, had lived at home in his mothers house, he had been able to endure his situation. It hadnt been pleasant, but it had been bearable; Joro had been able to keep his awareness of it well buried most of the time. Because there was someone younger than himself in the house, who had to take orders from their parents just as he did. Someone he outranked. Someone he could take out his anger and frustration on whenever his aging father decided it was time to taunt Joro yet again about his bachelor status. Someone he could subject to taunting and belittling and teasing. Especially teasing. Joro took tremendous pleasure in teasing women, whose reactions to the process were endlessly fascinating; it did them no harm, and it made him feel better about the unjust world he had to deal with daily. He had even begun keeping a detailed journal of the phenomenon, classifying and cross-classifying it into a taxonomy of verbal helplessness, and it was his intention to publish the results in one of the better scholarly journals when he was satisfied that it was complete. As long as it was like that, Joro had gotten by. He had in fact grown so accustomed to the old mans nagging and sarcasm that he hadnt really realized the true barbarousness of his situation. Until the morning he was suddenly brought right up against a pair of intolerable facts. The fact that Elizabeth was actually going to leave, that very day, the moment the celebration was over and the guests had gone away. And the fact that once she was gone, he would be the only child