WIFE OF HIS YOUTH
THE WIFE OF HIS YOUTH In every society there is a hierarchy of the classes and then again within each class there is a hierarchy. So it was with the African-Americans at the time Charles Wadell Chestnutt wrote “The wife of His youth”, in fact it is today still the same. ... Through reading such material as “The Wife of His Youth” white America was in part educated to the fact that blacks were just as prejudiced against each other as whites were; but more than that they were forced to consider the contents of our own hearts. ... And stories such as “The Wife of His Youth” filled them with outrage. ... He was faced with a terrible dilemma because his wife was everything he had worked so hard to escape.