Martin Gaite's only Franco-era play contests some fundamental Catholic and Francoist prescriptions for the female. The fact that it was not published or performed for nearly forty years is likely due at least in part to patriarchal censorship. The work dramatizes the personal development of two half-sisters who defy various gender norms and struggle to transform some of their own gender-coded behaviors. The play questions the desirability of conventional marriage and motherhood, foregrounds women's occupational interests, and positions females as authority figures for men. It also illustrates how sisterhood can facilitate women's autonomy. The ending is highly optimistic for Spanish postwar women's fiction: each of the protagonists is career oriented, unobstructed by family or the male, and increasingly self-reliant and content. Ultimately both of these women are among the most independent and assertive in the author's corpus and are implied alternative role models for females of the period.