Taken for granted 2

The delightful equality between me and my wife. The pleasure in strength I enjoy by being joined emotionally, physically and mentally with this incredible woman. In another time and place my circumstances, education and experience would not have fitted me to appreciate her, and I would have wandered through life blind to the qualities of people who are female. Brought up in a more masculine country where the divisions between genders was more emphasized and when the anxieties of sharing labors and concerns of a woman's state were more acute, I would have been excluded from and cheated out of a stream of experiences, thoughts and relationships that in this world I find sustaining and precious.

"In common law, wives had no rights over their children or to matrimonial property. This was because 'in marriage, husband and wife are one person, andthat person is the husband', as Sir William Blackstone deftly explained, glossing 'the very being, orlegal existence, of thewoman is suspended during marriage.'" From "English Society in the Eighteenth Century," by Roy Porter.

Things I take for granted

Feeding the girls with plentiful supplies of formula on hand, plenty of food to supply us with our daily needs. Easy access to stores stocked with baby care items like bottles, nipples, blankets, disposable diapers.

"A baby could only cry about its hunger, but mothers like me had to gry to do something abou tit. It's really hard to bear your child's sobs, when you have nothing to give him." Chieko Hashimoto, Japanese civilian recalling life during the War, when civilians starved on a diet of 1,680 calories a day. Quoted in "Retribution," by Max Hastings.