Little Scotia and the marriage crisis －リトル・スコーシャと離婚の危機（スコットランドとイギリス連邦の危機）

Little Scotia threatened a divorce.  She demanded a meeting with her husband to let him know the list of her grievances.

She complained that although she worked just as hard as her husband, he was keeping control of the money for both of them.

She claimed that she had brought expensive jewellery into the marriage: fine black-gold jewellery.  And now she demanded it back.

She demanded that her husband remove his guns from her room.  He has very big guns, which he says are necessary to defend both of them and their friends as well.  Only, he doesn’t have enough room in his bedroom, so would Little Scotia mind awfully if he kept the guns in her bedroom instead?

Little Scotia’s husband laughed at her threatened divorce.  He told her she could never make it on her own.  Where would she find work?  What friends would help her when the membership cards for all the clubs they went to were in her husband’s name?  What money would she use when her husband had control of their joint bank-account?

But Little Scotia was brave and insisted that despite all her husband’s threats, she would still seek a divorce.  She could make it on her own.  She was resourceful.  Hadn’t she contributed at least equally to this marriage?  Who had installed the telephone?  Or the television?  And if there was a problem with money, didn’t she still have all that expensive jewellery?

She was going to use her freedom to make a better life for herself and her children.  Her husband had sold their disabled son’s wheelchair, claiming that they were too poor to afford it any longer, as he puffed on his cigar.  Little Scotia would buy it back.  She would look after the health of all her children equally, no matter how much money they had to repay her.  Her husband had said that their children should start paying money for their own medicine, since the couple no longer had enough money to be generous, as he sipped champagne with his old Eton classmates.

As the date of the divorce drew close, her husband began to worry that his wife might actually go through with it.  He promised changes.  There would be... well, he wasn’t sure exactly what, but there would definitely be changes.  And Little Scotia could have more control over her pocket money.

Little Scotia thought long and hard about it.  She thought about the threats, the promises, her jewellery... 

And she decided that they were better together after all.  Her husband was a good man, a little selfish perhaps.  A little wont to talk about past glories, perhaps but essentially a good man.  Look: there he is now, chatting with his banker friends and taking good care of the money.  I wonder if he’s paying back debts he incurred on his recent trip to Iraq?

Good luck, Little Scotia.  You’re better than you know.