A new relationship

Joseph is a very old man. He has a hard life as a farmer and does not get much more for his work than he needs for living.
But over the years he still has been able to save quite a bit. For the living conditions in the area, that's actually quite a lot.
An average family can get by on this for a whole year.
He wants to use his savings to finally find a wife.

A few years ago, a girl caught his eye. Her name is Maria.
Although she has been at the age when many girls hit puberty at that time, she only recently started to show any signs of sexual maturity.
The fact that her family is very poor, which means she doesn't get much food, must be the main reason for this.
Nevertheless, Joseph finds her very attractive. She must be the prettiest girl in the whole village.

Ever since her puberty started she started to pay attention to her appearance and became relatively popular in the village.
She's basically begging to find a man.
She is friendly and accommodating to everyone. But despite her poverty, she seems very content and happy.
A few boys, not much older than her, have expressed an interest in her, but the family has rejected all of them.

Joseph wants to pay off the family generously and marry Maria.
So he goes to the family and offers them most of his fortune for Maria.
He keeps a small part of the money as security for the next few months and promises to take good care of Maria.
The family thanks him and accepts his offer.
They really need the money. They don't seem to care that much about his promise, though.

From that day on, Maria resides with Joseph.
To Maria, the new life is very unusual at first.
But she seems to like it better than at home.

It turns out she really hasn't been treated well at home.
She was beaten a lot when she didn't come back with a proper man after dressing up.
Her mom thought she was too kind to men and gave them too much before they promised anything serious. She only took some money from them.
Above all, she spent too much time with boys who didn't have much to offer themselves.
She had a relatively good life as long as she wasn't at home.

Joseph treats her very well. She has a lot of freedom at home and is even allowed to cook for herself.
She can help Joseph at work in the fields when she wants to, but she is also allowed to stay at home and relax.

She only gets beaten if she is not home in time, as soon as Joseph has finished work.
That seems totally fair to her.
At home, the rules for this were not really clear and depended mostly on the mood of her parents. She was often able to avoid punishment by staying away from them at certain times.
Here she usually volunteers when she did anything wrong. She can't hide her mistakes anyway.

They kiss frequently and cuddle very intimately in the evenings.
But to Joseph it's still too early for sex. She is still very young and barely developed.

Maria doesn't think Joseph is particularly pretty. He's even older than her dad.
But she does like kissing and cuddling.
It shows her his appreciation. It's a kind of appreciation she's never gotten from other men.
An honest, deep appreciation.

So everything is good about their new life.