Jointure

is, legally, the sum a woman might get
from her husband's death,
if her clan were powerful enough.

It might even be a good portion of that property
her father had owned and let as dowry.
Or it might not,

because Da had always wanted a boy
and so loved his son-in-law
more than the female child

he indentured to the young earl,
in whose park he loved to hunt, that he went easy
on the contract terms,

fearing he couldn't close the deal otherwise.
No matter. The lady has a brother,
a duke, and he can always see to her needs—

and force another arranged marriage, to a lesser peer,
though one sympathetic to his schemes.
She goes where she's told to go,

spreads her legs, conceives,
and, after giving birth, they're all kin.
That she might have wanted something else is just a sin.