In these chapters we also learn Cissy's tragic backstory as she relates it to Valancy one night not long before her death. This sad tale highlights a few issues, one of them being the dangers of keeping girls in ignorance of the facts of life. Cissy confesses that she didn't know "some things" and it's not surprising: her mother died when she was a small child, her sot of a father only cares about himself, and his behaviour ensured that no respectable woman would come to care for his child, only a series of uncaring old crones. Also, the only place that Cissy ever went socially was to the local church, where they definitely weren't teaching sex ed. Roaring Abel bears a lot of responsibility for Cissy's wrecked life: as I mentioned before, he was no kind of a father to her, other than providing the bare essentials of life, and every study shows- even today- that girls who grow up without the love and protection of their fathers will go looking for it elsewhere, usually in the wrong places. This, of course, does not absolve Cissy of all blame; ultimately we're all responsible for our own choices, but she was set up for failure. Naturally, there is one other person who is also responsible for this debacle: the young man with whom Cissy was involved.
We live in a time period where one or the other of the partners in a marriage can decide that they are no longer "in love" and this is thought to be a good reason to get a divorce. Well not in my opinion, especially if there are children involved. It is the height of selfishness to explode their world just because you don't happen to be feeling the old spark; every study shows that divorce is more traumatic for kids than the death of a parent. Now, before anyone starts having a seizure, I'm not talking about abusive relationships: obviously, if a spouse is abusive, the other owes it to herself/himself and their kids to get out and stay out. But I've never seen the "I'm just not feelin' it no more" clause in the marriage vows. The world would be a better place if more people would suck it up, stand by their commitments, and work at their marriages instead of jumping ship when the going gets tough.
Apart from anything else, Cissy was doing the young man- and I use that term with reservations- no favours by letting him off the hook. Being forced to behave like a man and face up to his responsibilities might have been the making of him. Now though, he will forever be a lesser person because, no matter where he goes or what he accomplishes, he will always be a man who took the coward's way out, cravenly abandoning his child. There's no escaping that fact, whether anyone else besides himself knows about it or not.
As is so often the case, the woman in this situation- Cissy- pays the highest price, with not only her reputation, but her health being ruined. And, when her baby dies, she also loses her will to live, not even trying to fight the disease which is slowly killing her. I'll discuss this in a follow-up post, because this one- thanks to my ranting- is getting too long.