Fallen Parttime Wife

When the arrangement ends, the fallen part-time wife often faces a financial cliff. Unlike a divorced woman, she has no claim to his assets. Unlike an employee, she cannot claim unemployment benefits. She may emerge at age 35 or 45 with a spotty resume, no savings, and psychological trauma. This is the "fall" in its most literal sense—a plummet from a modest but secure perch into the abyss of poverty.

(Nathaniel Hawthorne) – Though a full adulteress rather than a part-time wife, Hester’s forced scarlet letter marks her as a fallen woman. Her crime? Loving a man outside the bonds of legal matrimony while her husband was absent—a kind of "part-time" abandonment. fallen parttime wife