The chap­ter “Sadie, Sadie, Mar­ried Lady” reflects on the nar­ra­tor’s col­lege expe­ri­ence at Syra­cuse Uni­ver­si­ty and her rela­tion­ship with Jef­frey, her boyfriend. In con­trast to her pre­vi­ous school, Dart­mouth, Syra­cuse lacked charm, with her all-girl dorm, Haven Hall, being more func­tion­al than fascinating—likened to a toi­let bowl. Although she enjoyed the pri­va­cy of a sin­gle room, it left her feel­ing iso­lat­ed and lone­ly.

Jeffrey’s vis­its to Syra­cuse were chal­leng­ing due to his work and her par­ents’ strict con­trol over her finances, but she man­aged to vis­it him at Fort Devens, amidst parental dis­ap­proval. Their sum­mer ren­dezvous, masked as a vis­it to friends in Albany, led to a humor­ous inci­dent involv­ing for­got­ten paja­mas but ulti­mate­ly solid­i­fied their bond.

As Jef­frey pre­pared to grad­u­ate and ful­fill his mil­i­tary ser­vice, he sug­gest­ed they get mar­ried in Decem­ber. Sur­prised but excit­ed, the nar­ra­tor faced the daunt­ing task of inform­ing her par­ents, par­tic­u­lar­ly her father, who had for­bid­den her from mar­ry­ing before grad­u­a­tion. They unex­pect­ed­ly vis­it­ed, prompt­ing her anx­i­ety about their pos­si­ble wrath. How­ev­er, when her moth­er expressed dis­ap­proval, the nar­ra­tor brave­ly assert­ed her inde­pen­dence for the first time, assert­ing her plan to mar­ry regard­less of her par­ents’ opin­ions. Her father sur­prised her by sup­port­ing the deci­sion, mark­ing a turn­ing point in their rela­tion­ship.

As wed­ding prepa­ra­tions com­menced, the cou­ple nav­i­gat­ed dif­fer­ing preferences—her fas­ci­na­tion with tra­di­tion­al wed­ding aspects like a reg­istry, and his prac­ti­cal con­cerns. They set­tled on a small wed­ding at her father’s recent­ly pur­chased house in Stam­ford, which became an idyl­lic venue. The nar­ra­tor chose a unique wed­ding dress, while Jef­frey insist­ed on wear­ing his mil­i­tary uni­form, defy­ing her mother’s aes­thet­ic con­cerns.

The chap­ter cul­mi­nates in the wed­ding day, filled with ner­vous excite­ment, cul­mi­nat­ing in a mag­i­cal cer­e­mo­ny where snow fell out­side, enhanc­ing the fairy­tale ambiance. Post-cer­e­mo­ny, the cou­ple, enveloped in the joy of their union and the chal­lenges ahead, looked for­ward to their hon­ey­moon, set­ting the stage for the adven­ture of mar­ried life. The chap­ter inter­twines themes of inde­pen­dence, roman­tic inno­cence, and the evo­lu­tion of famil­ial rela­tion­ships dur­ing a trans­for­ma­tive life peri­od.