The war-clouds are gathering over Europe. And for Martha Quest, the first passionate flush of marriage begins to fade. Sensuality becomes dulled by habit, marriage becomes motherhood and, with the outbreak of war, Martha’s political consciousness begins to dawn. The barriers between her and the frightening outside world finally dissolve…

A powerful study both of the dissolution of a society and the disintegration of a marriage, A Proper Marriage shows Doris Lessing’s passionate involvement with the problems of the modern woman – her anguish, her ambiguous freedom, her sexual discontent…

‘Not only the best woman novelist we have but one of the most serious and intelligent and honest writers of the whole post-war generation’ Sunday Times

A Proper Marriage is Book Two in Doris Lessing’s novel-sequence CHILDREN OF VIOLENCE. Each book in the sequence can be read and enjoyed quite independently of its companion volumes.