ABSTRACT
For the first time, Alva considered seriously whether their marriage should continue. Agreeing on honesty and sexual fidelity as the only viable basis for their relationship proved less difficult than coming to terms with women’s social subordination. While Gunnar praised Alva as his intellectual supporter, he failed to recognize that his career inhibited her own. Although she had written most of Crisis in the Population Question, Gunnar had been appointed to the Population Commission. When she wanted to run for a seat in the Riksdag, she was blocked by the fact that her husband was already in parliament. She had worked hard to establish herself as a child psychologist, yet she found herself continually undermined by the childishness of her husband and the adolescent troubles of a son who needed more attention from his father. Underlying all these particulars was “the eternal problem of being a woman,” which “is fraught with momentous consequences.” These systemic social problems could not be solved through introspection; only by living differently could she begin to address them.
