But to me that word [wife] is barred and barbed, threatening to hold me down when all I want is to stretch my wings to ride the fickle currents beyond the reach of any cage.
-- Clara/narration (Tinder)

Importance: For Clara, the marriage arrangement within her culture sets limitations on her sense of self and identity that she does not accept as part of her life trajectory. Though she never dissents on her Jewish faith itself, she denies certain cultural social products of that faith, in this case, marriage. To Clara, to be a wife is to sacrifice spontaneity, creativity, and agency for the sake of obedience, domesticity, “a biddable spirit,” and other qualities expected of a wife by her community (14). She recognizes that the life of a woman who denies these practices can be “fickle currents,” structured by feeling and fickle emotions rather than the rule of cultures, but Clara accepts the unknown...