 Set in a workhouse ward, where a group of mothers, married and unmarried, look after their children, it exposes the contradictions of a system where Penelope, a respectable, secure, mother of five and unmarried is freer than respectable Mrs Cleaver who returns from her appeal to the Board of Guardians to announce that legally she has no right to leave the workhouse, eve though she has work to go to and a home available for herself and her children.The play, with its refusal to condemn vice and the unmarried mother, was either condemned for offensiveness or acclaimed for its importance.