The faceless troops file past us every day. How wonderful to be living in democracy, we say. We’re so free, we say. Any individual who languishes by the wayside isn’t really trying because in this land of plenty everything helps he who helps himself. If you don’t know how to help yourself, if she doesn’t know, she is masochistic, neurotic. If she does know, she’s overbearing and domineering. If he helps himself he’s forward-looking no matter how many people he walks over, no matter how his wife or his girlfriend languishes in the shadows. No matter how she longs for him to come home, or clings to his sleeve. If she creates a problem and becomes overbearing and domineering, that is, if she can speak for herself, argue her own case convincingly, any man would befriend him and any number of women will willingly take her place. She’s on the Pill, she should know about abortion. Anyway, there’s the supporting mother’s pension. They’re not married arid any woman who believes in monogamy these days must be old-fashioned. She’s unable to exercise her natural polygamous instincts because she’s restrained by her conditioned wifely response. She’s inhibited, she’s not feminist enough, she’s not independent enough. He says she’s fucked up but she’s living in democracy.