worse, but he was worse than I took him for” ’ (Crispin pp. 107, 109). Marriages have always gone through stages of disillusionment. What marks out our age is that ‘we want more from marriage than most of our grandparents ever dreamed was possible’ (Flood p. 13) and that we are not prepared to be patient and work hard at relationships to make them better. We want happiness and we want it now. Richmond tells a typical story of a woman leaving her husband, not with any other man immediately in view,