The paper deals with the emotional states of women of about forty with whom divorce is only a symptom of neurotic illness. The growing up of children, the frequent loss of parents, and the approaching physiological changes at this age produce states of regret and a revival of penis envy. The divorce is an attempt to take revenge on the man, to show him to the world as 'no man' and to take over the masculine rôle of independence and career. After the divorce, there frequently follows a period of erotomania, but the unconscious impulse for revenge still ties the subject to her former mate.