Marjorie Merriweather Post (1887-1973) is the protagonist of the novel. The only child of Charles William and Ella Post and the heir to the General Foods company fortune, Marjorie marries four times—her husbands are Edward Close, Ned Hutton, Joseph Davies, and Herbert May—but dies single. With Close, she has two children, Adelaide and Eleanor, and with Hutton, she has Nedenia, or Deenie.

Marjorie spends the novel trying to find a balance between her individuality and her relationships with the men in her life, beginning with her father. By the end of her life, she recognizes the force of nature that she is, calling herself “Lady Bountiful” in the Prologue (9).

Her struggle begins upon discovering her father’s infidelity, which continues to haunt her even after Charles William’s death. As the man who teaches Marjorie to succeed financially and personally, Charles William has numerous positive impacts on Marjorie’s life, but his betrayal of her mother shocks his daughter. Seeing him act not as the man she believed her father to be makes her wonder, “Perhaps I’d never really known him at all” (55).

Marjorie grows up knowing that “a man would have to someday run the company, and I had always believed that man would be my husband” (132).