Inside and outside marriage, what happens to the woman betrayed? How do abandoned wives or lovers feel? What happens when the battle between the sexes becomes a triangle?The plots in this collection of eighteen stories written between the 1840s and 1980s are infinitely variable, and the outcomes will enrage, shock, amuse, and sometimes hearten. In some stories, women forge links with other women in solidarity. In others, women fight for their men and win. In many stories, the betrayal ultimately enriches the central character, who learns through the loss of her man the value of her own life.