Virago; (n) a strong, brave, or warlike woman; a woman who demonstrates exemplary and heroic qualities.
She hadn’t gone to war like her father. She hadn’t birthed a son on the battlefield like her grandmother and she had not raised a brother like her aunt. Yet she was a warrior, despite having blackened her mother by her sex she was a hero.
Surviving the marriage would have been no exemplary feat, all women did it. All women lived with their cheating husbands serving them so they’d keep their dignity in return. She however was a warrior, she fought, she fought through her broken marriage against her husband and against the gossiping women who hid their faces in the bonnets of their failed marriages.
They called her names, told her it was just a bad day, that her strength lies in her resilience, that staying quiet would save her home. She fought against it all, against the family that turned, against raised fingers that followed, and then against those who believed martyrdom was the answer to her suffering.
It was a long war, with many battles. The world she lived in does not believe in supporting those of her sex. They would rather have lived with biased cultures and painful traditions, even if they hurt everyone involved. They took pride in suffering, that was their only wrong. Cold and hostile attitudes weren’t foreign to her, unsolicited advice on how to keep her marriage bed warm was offered even by those whose arms were covered in bruises of their own ‘love’. Yet she fought. If they thought she was not strong enough to bear the pain, they were wrong. She could have lived through it all with a smile, but she knew she should not have to, there was no reason to suffer the way she did and that mattered. Because unlike her grandmother she had birthed a daughter on the battlefield and that made all the difference.
Birth In The Battlefield
