" She knew that he loved her, but she also knew that he meant to tempt her to abandon her future, and to join her life to his.

But she had been married once already. A wife belonged body and soul to her husband. She did not exist under the law but could be put away or ignored at his will. She could be cut off without a penny, no matter what dowry she brought to the match. A wife was nothing, a nonentity, a ghost. As much as she loved Pembroke, as much as she always would, she was alive. She had fought hard for her life, and she would keep it. "

― Christy English , Love on a Midsummer Night (Shakespeare in Love, #2)