New Altered Art With A Story

I was intrigued with this picture I found in an old Victorian Album. It said they were missionaries to Africa in the first part of the 1900's. She looks dazed and he looks crazy. It made me think of pre-arranged marriages and years of solitude being a minister's wife--and in a foreign country no less. This piece began with the number taken from a rusty license plate that didn't sell on eBay and progressed to some chicken wire I retrieved from my back yard off the trash pile. (I haven't convinced my husband yet that rusty things are treasures.) I found very quickly a sentence from an old literature book (1927) in a story by Washington Irving called "Christmas." It says: "The scene of early love again rises green to memory beyond the sterile waste of years;..." "sterile waste of years"--and I thought of all those years spent with a man one was forced to marry. Marriage is difficult even when one loves another, but to think of life with a man one didn't love is beyond my comprehension. Her heart so wants to love him, but it became a poisonous relationship. Oh, well, just supposition. What's your take on it?