Intended as a companion volume to "Testament of Youth," Vera Brittain's ["Honourable Estate"] is, as might be expected, a novel of ideas. It tells the story of three marriages and covers the period between 1894 and 1930. Considered separately, each marriage represents a phase in the struggle of women for political and moral suffrage….

The title, "Honourable Estate," also has a symbolical meaning. It refers here not only to marriage but, in a wider sense, to the status of women and workers whose strivings for recognition and dignity are the real subject of this book. In a short foreword the author explains that her title has a still further significance. It represents for her that maturity of spirit which comes through suffering and experience.

All of this becomes evident early in the book. For interwoven with the chronicle of each marriage is a story of the suffering which follows when...