The Congressman's Wife : A Story of a Woman in American Politics

What is the role of women in politics? This book is dedicated to those less famous wives of prominent political leaders who bear the pressures of the everyday burdens together with their husbands. The female characters, congressmen's wives, mothers, and friends come across in typical 19th-century "woman as angel" or "moral compass" image. Their role is assigned in the story's opening pages by one of the protagonists saying: "It's wonderful how they stand it. But I sometimes think the women bear it better than the men." These words refer to political turbulence, press chasing, dangers, and difficult elections that congressmen wives must come through while organizing the social dinners, visiting meetings, caring for their children, and providing psychological comfort for their husbands. The author says in the foreword that this work was inspired by Mr. Brand Whitlock's novel "The Thirteenth District," dedicated to remarkable insight and fidelity of American congressmen's satellites.