Introduction

These two powerful short plays by Myrna Lamb, while continuing to explore the ravages worked on our humanity by a patriarchal system (like the rest of Scyklon Z),[1] are especially interesting in their differences. Each shows a complementary but sharply different facet of the author's temperament.

You know, Alta, your roommate
may be pretty, but you have that inner
beauty that counts!
BARRY, 1960

An expanded and revised version of »Kinder, Küche, Kirche as Scientific Law:
Psychology Constructs the Female« (Boston: New England Free Press, 1968).
© 1969 by Naomi Weisstein.

The Structure of American Marriage

In 1840 Alexis de Tocqueville analyzed the American marriages:

By any definition woman is an outsider. A difficult notion genuinely to digest, as woman occupies one-half of the race, constitutes an entire sexual category, cuts across all cultures, classes, and conditions, and often occupies positions of honor within those very circumstances in which total rule is exercised, it nevertheless is true.