When the mighty men came back from faraway places, they were strangers in their own homes. They were catered to and kept in the dark. At some point the fathers had to be brought in, implicated if you will, in the deeds of their sons and their daughters, but until that day dawned, until a daughter’s transgressions became too public a matter to be ignored, or a son’s ways could no longer be indulged, the men were pampered and left ignorant. In the dark hours, when a reckoning could no longer be avoided, when the code of the place had been stretched to the breaking point, the women had to do things of great cruelty. It was their burden, their task.