The women of my mother's generation had, in the main, only one decision to make about their lives: who they would marry. From that, so much else followed: where they would live, in what sort of conditions, whether they would be happy or sad or, so often, a bit of both. There were roles and there were rules.
You realize that these accidental decisions you make about changing jobs, about moving into an apartment where you make new friends and confidants, about going to one city over another, that sometimes they're completely arbitrary decisions that you haven't put as much thought into as perhaps you should have, and yet they change the course of your whole life.
For many years, despite what I thought were really punitive decisions about women in the church, I stayed and stayed and stayed. I kept saying to myself, "The Catholic church is my church, and by God, I'm going to stay here, despite what the hierarchy does."
I stopped going to mass, and boy, it was painful for me, and it was certainly painful for my family, but I just couldn't ratify their behavior and their decisions anymore by showing up on Sundays.
The issue is privacy. Why is the decision by a woman to sleep with a man she has just met in a bar a private one, and the decision to sleep with the same man for $100 subject to criminal penalties?
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