Chapter 7 (1/2)

She always was fascinated with dresses and jewelry to make her look better. In order to finance that, wealth was a necessity.

The second condition for marriage: attractiveness!

If she were to only consider wealth, she would’ve already married some successful merchant as a second wife, but then she wouldn’t be content with her kids turning out ugly.

In order to bear better-looking kids than Luca, her husband had to be a good looker.

That’s why Judith’s shot at marriage got slimmer… but I totally agree with her terms.

And that was that.

On top of that, his personality needs to be good; his voice needs to sound nice; he can’t let himself loose and be lazy; and he can’t be too scrawny, since that’s not attractive.

Oh, and being tall is a must!

It was absurd to settle for less with that neverending list of conditions for marriage.

I snorted as I replied.

“You have quite the knack for saying stuff as if it didn’t pertain to you, huh? Don’t worry about me and focus on yourself, Thomas. You have high standards for liking me, so if you don’t lower your own expectations, you won’t get married?”

His face flushed red as I kept on arguing.

He didn’t work up the courage to talk back to me, so he grumbled something to himself and scampered away, his tail tucked between his legs.

I chortled.

He was trying to talk me down, thinking that he would have a chance with me, did you think I wasn’t aware of that?

Larissa and Luca were exceptionally beautiful, but Judith also was quite the beauty that turned heads, especially in this small rural village.

When I revisited Judith’s memory, Thomas never dared to talk to her when she was younger.

He didn’t have any courage back then, so why is he trying now?

He is trying because he’s getting older?

No, it looked like he assumed I lowered my standards.

Judith from back then and now, with the exception of age, didn’t change much.

On top of that, Thomas and I are the same age.

We are both considered old to get married, so it wasn’t even funny that he was trying me.

‘The pressure to get married by a suitable age was imposed on women more so than men…’