The attitude of the speaker is cynical. She cannot accept her husband’ act of cowardice. She uses the word ‘virtuous’ ironically. She mocks at the possibility of all praising the farmer as a man of dignity who couldn’t bear the idea of taking loans from others. It is customary for all of us to praise the *** and so the farmer would get nothing but sympathy. However, the speaker considers his act cowardly. She says ironically that she will be taken as a ‘poor sinner’ because she is still alive when her virtuous husband has become a martyr.
She is justifiably that the ‘man’ of the house has turned out to be a coward. The man who abused her because of his advantage of being ‘but a man’ in a patriarchal society, has left her behind to do the work of a man, that is, earning a living for the sake of the four ***. The woman rightly points out that the farmer should have had the strength of character to ask the questions, ‘What of this?’ and ‘Why is this?’ and fought against the odds in life to come out of difficulty. But he showed no such courage and left his family behind in dire straits to fend for themselves.
